


affectations of genuine affection

by badskeletonpuns



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: All my favorite tropes, Angst, F/F, F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Feelings, Limos, Living Together, Mutual Pining, No Polyamory (I'm Sorry), Not Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Sex, WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED, bed sharing, longer and dreamier, welcome to my dream fic part two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-02-22 23:15:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 45,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13177266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskeletonpuns/pseuds/badskeletonpuns
Summary: They all made it to Earth, hale and hearty. But Goddard's still around, and someone has to do something about that, preferably in a legal manner. Gee, it sure would make their case more sympathetic if Lovelace and Minkowski pretended to be star-crossed lovers, wouldn't it? It would, trust me. The fake-relationship slow-as-I-can-which-isn't-that-slow minlace AUIknew I needed.





	1. Chapter 1

“Captain Lovelace, when did you and Minkowski start dating?”

They were at some sort of mandatory public appearance, shaking babies, kissing hands, the whole nine yards. Lovelace was leaning in, hand on Minkowski’s shoulder and whispering a terrible joke about one of the nastier reporters. Minkowski smiled at her, laughing, and then they heard the question.

The reporter who’d asked it pushed his glasses up his nose and stepped closer, grinning at the two of them conspiratorially. “Come on, it’s not like I’m the press for a major magazine or anything,” he joked. “You can call me Jones, and I promise I’m not homophobic or looking for a scoop, I just…” He glanced down, and when he looked back up he was a little more serious. “You two are really inspiring, you know?” 

Lovelace and Minkowski’s eyes met, and in the second of silence there’s a day’s worth of conversations. Are we doing this? It probably said something, the way they could talk to each other without words. Minkowski did not want to think about what, she didn’t want to think at all. Let’s go for it.

Which, in retrospect, was probably what led to her leaning into Lovelace at her side and mirroring the reporters conspiratory charm. “It was later in the mission,” Minkowski lied. “It was just… There was a lot going on. Not a lot of time to think about romance when there’s an evil corporation breathing down your neck.” 

“I had plenty of time to think about romance,” Lovelace whispered into the mic, not missing a beat. “I mean, look at Minkowski. Who wouldn’t think about romance with her around? That bastard Cutter himself probably wouldn’t be able to resist the thought.” She dropped a kiss on Minkowski’s forehead and beamed at the reporter like they’d planned this all along. 

Jones took the given opportunity, changing the subject to the atrocities they’d gone through and how they knew Cutter and Goddard had been at fault. He didn’t bring up the dating thing for the rest of their conversation.

But just before being elbowed out of the way by a pushier member of the press, Jones ripped a piece of paper out of his notebook. “Here, wait, can you guys sign this?” He blushed a little, fidgeting with the cuffs on his shirt. “My partner loves space and they think you guys are great, they’d love to hear that you guys are together.” 

Minkowski glanced at Lovelace—who was already signing the paper with more flourish than was necessary. That was that, then. Minkowski signed it and handed it back to Jones, and then in a moment of flashing cameras and shoving, he was gone and there were different reporters shouting questions into their faces. 

“Is it true that you were in space for three years?”

“What exactly happened to Doctor Alexander Hilbert?”

“Did your AI really think it was a person?” 

“Give us the scoop on the forbidden romance between you two!” 

No one asked about Koudelka. 

Minkowski pretended she wasn’t rubbing the spot where her ring used to sit, but Lovelace grabbed her hand anyway. Drummed her fingers over the back of Minkowski’s hand, tapping out something that felt suspiciously like the rhythm to a show tune they’d both admitted a secret love for. 

“Hey,” Lovelace murmured into her ear in a moment of reprieve. Eiffel was at the forefront of their little group, hopefully charming and not disturbing a group of press with wild arm gestures and dramatic retellings. “You doing okay?” 

“I could live the rest of my life without seeing another reporter,” Minkowski said through a bright smile.

Lovelace chuckled. “What if you were seeing them get asked a hundred intrusive questions about their personal lives?” 

Minkowski considered the statement. She squeezed Lovelace’s hand once, a silent thank you. “I think I could live with that.” 

Up in front of them, Eiffel was finishing his story with a series of ridiculously deep bows. 

“Ten bucks says he falls over,” muttered Lovelace.

“You’re on,” Minkowski bet. “He’s not that clumsy.” 

“Yeah, but I am that petty,” Lovelace said, and she had let go of Minkowski’s hand to cup her hands around her mouth and shout to Eiffel. “Hey, spaceman! Minkowski and I are dating, did we forget to tell you?” 

Eiffel jerked up out of his final bow with such force that he overcorrected, wheeling his arms and just barely staying on his feet. “What?”

Lovelace sighed. “Damn.” 

“Cheater.” 

“Resourceful.” 

Minkowski shook her head. “I can’t believe we’re together.” 

“Trouble in paradise already? But darling, we haven’t even had our honeymoon yet.” Lovelace batted her eyelashes at Minkowski, who did not notice the length of said eyelashes or the way the sun glinted in Lovelace’s dark eyes, no sir.

Eiffel was trotting over to the two of them, head tipped to one side in confusion. “You guys are together?” 

“Yep,” Minkowski said, popping the p. “Have been since late into the Hephaestus trip. Don’t you remember?” Something about her—probably the certified Minkowski Look™ in her eyes or the threat just under the surface of her voice—told Eiffel not to ask too many questions right now. 

He hesitated for a second, but then shrugged and turned back to the crowd of reporters who’d pressed further in after him. “Alright, folks, I think the fat lady has finished singing and we’re about done here. Any last words for our both lovely-and-in-love commanding officers?”

The group erupted into clamor and questions, and in the resultant confusion a security guard from the venue rushed the three of them off into their side room that they’d wait in till even the most determined of the paparazzi had left. The moment the guard left the room, Eiffel spun to face Minkowski and Lovelace.

“What the hell was that?” 

“She started it,” Lovelace blurted. 

Minkowski shoved her lightly. “Hey, you were the one whispering sweet nothings into my ear in the first place,” she teased. 

Lovelace raised an eyebrow. “I said, and I quote, ‘That reporter’s hairpiece looks like a weiner dog curled up on his head and died there’. If that’s your definition of sweet nothings, I think you and your husband need to have a talk.”

Her husband. Shit. Minkowski sat down on the floor, a little too abruptly for it to have been intentional. “I… Dominik.” 

Eiffel stepped in between the two of them, waving his hand in their lines of vision. “Hello? Extremely confused communications officer to ground control, please respond.” 

All three of them were silent. The lights in their tiny back room buzzed, just barely audible now that no one was speaking. The sound dug its way into Minkowski’s brain, and she shook her head in an effort to clear it. How did she explain this to Eiffel? To Koudelka? Hell, how did she explain this to herself?

After a long minute, Lovelace sat down on the floor next to Minkowski. “One of the reporters asked us how long we’d been dating.”

“And you didn’t just, oh, I don’t know, tell him the truth about your relative sexualities and marital statuses and what have you?” 

Lovelace started laughing. “Eiffel, do you honestly think either of us is straight?” she sputtered. 

He shrugged, rubbing at the back of his neck and refusing to make eye contact with either woman. “I mean, Minkowski’s married to a dude, right?” 

“Eiffel,” Minkowski said. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what bisexuality is. Aren’t you bi?” 

“Oh yeah! I forgot about that, whoops.” 

“You own a tank-top that says ‘Bi and Hella Kawaii’.” 

“I’m a very forgetful person.” 

Lovelace flopped over onto her side, letting her head fall on Minkowski’s leg. “Anyway, Eiffel’s forgetfulness and our ‘relative sexualities and what have you’ aren’t the issue here. What might be the issue is our—or rather, your—marital status.” 

Minkowski sighed. “Dominik will understand.” 

“Really?” Eiffel asked. 

“If I was your husband, I’m not sure I would understand,” Lovelace agreed. “Unless he’s the sharing type, I’m not sure he’s going to want to hear that you’ve been dating someone else since before you came home from the Hephaestus.” 

Minkowski was carding through Lovelace’s hair with one hand, the motion almost automatic. “It will be fine. I don’t need you two of all people telling me if a scheme I’ve come up with is ridiculous.” 

“Oh, so this is a scheme, now?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” 

Lovelace tipped her head back to meet Minkowski’s eyes, and reached up to grab Minkowski’s wrist and stop her hand. “You sure?” The room seemed to shrink around them, narrowing to only the places where their skin came into contact. It was hot, far hotter than it had been seconds ago, and the lights were so bright. The only thing it didn’t hurt to look at was Lovelace, the steadiness in her gaze. 

“Look, if you guys need some alone time, I can leave…” 

Minkowski sat up, yanking her hand away from Lovelace. “No, no, Eiffel, stay.” She took a deep breath. “Look. This will all blow over, it won’t have to be a scheme or a plan or anything at all. I’ll tell Dominik and he’ll be fine with it, and we’ll wake up tomorrow morning and go back to our regular lives.” 

Neither other person looked convinced. 

“Come on, you two. I’m not wrong.” 

“Not usually,” Lovelace allowed. “But there were a lot of reporters there.” 

“And we had much bigger stories than the two of us.” Minkowski pushed Lovelace’s head off her lap and stood up. The room was back to its normal size, but it still felt too hot and too bright and she was a little afraid that if she kept looking at Lovelace she was going to do something really stupid like kiss her. “I have to go, okay? I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” 

Lovelace sat up. “Minkowski, wait-” 

But she was out of the door before Lovelace could finish.

* * *

Dominik was waiting when she got home, with two glasses of wine and their two elderly German Shepherds lying across his feet. 

“Hey, boys,” she said softly, ruffling the dogs’ ears. “Did you miss me?” 

“I know I did.” Dominik teased. “I’m less sure about Gilbert and Sullivan. I don’t know if they ever forgave you for leaving for those years.” 

Minkowski winced.

Dominik offered her a glass. “Too soon?” 

She nodded. “Did you see the news today?” 

He didn’t say anything, just set the glass he’d been offering her down on the coffee table. Minkowski was struck with the urge to slide a coaster underneath it, but she’d only been home for a few weeks and wasn’t used to his movements the way she’d been before the Hephaestus. A lot of things had been different before the Hephaestus. 

“Dominik?” she asked. 

Her husband took a sip from his own glass before speaking, the deep red of the wine staining his upper lip. “It was aired live,” he said. “Jones used to work for me.” 

Minkowski drew in a breath. “Dom, I’m sorry, I promise I didn’t mean for that to happen.” She sat down next to him on the couch and set her hand on his shoulder. At their feet, Gilbert whuffed softly and set his head on Minkowski’s leg. She’d always been his favorite. 

“Oh, you didn’t mean to tell a crowd of reporters frothing at the mouth for personal information that you were dating the famous Captain Lovelace?” Dominik snarked before shaking his head and turning away from her. “That was uncalled for.” 

She squeezed his shoulder. “No, it was definitely called for. I was out of line, and I shouldn’t have said things that weren’t true. You just…” Minkowski sighed. In front of her, the table was marked with pale rings of a hundred wine glasses or coffee cups left on it over the three years she’d been away. Just one more thing that had changed. “You weren’t there. His face, Dom…” 

Dominik turned back to her, taking her hand off his shoulder and holding it gently. “I told you, Renee, I knew Jones. He’s got one of those faces that’s easy to talk to, okay? I understand.” 

Minkowski couldn’t help a grin. “I told them you would. Lovelace and Eiffel, I mean.” 

Dominik set his glass down next to hers and tapped Minkowski on the nose. “Glad to hear you never doubted me.” 

“Not once,” she promised, and leaned in to press a gentle kiss to his lips. 

She wondered how it would feel to kiss Lovelace. Softer, probably, but more demanding. A give and take like the arguments they had so often in the early days on the Hephaestus. The moment Minkowski realized she was kissing her husband and thinking about Lovelace, she jolted back.

Dominik inclined his head to one side, a silent question.

“I’m fine,” Minkowski said, too loud, too not-fine. Gilbert whined and shoved his face into her leg, and on reflex she leaned down to pet him. Sullivan sat up to receive pets as soon as Gilbert got attention, and she smiled a little. At least they wouldn’t judge her for having improper thoughts about the former Captain. “I’m just—it’s been a long day.” 

Dominik nodded. “It’ll all seem better in the morning. Come to bed?” 

She nodded gratefully, and let him take her hand and lead her up the stairwell. Minkowski breathed in once, twice, three times. Things would blow over, surely. Everything would go back to normal. 

Whatever normal was now, at any rate.


	2. Chapter 2

Minkowski should have known better than to give the universe an opportunity like that. 

She woke up to Koudelka shaking her awake and holding out his phone, eyebrows quirked somewhere between amused and irritated. “It’s that talkshow host I hate,” he murmured. 

Even before she’d put the phone to her ear, someone was already talking a mile a minute. “Hey there, good morning, how’s it going? I’m Vaughn, from Your Nightly Vaughn, and I’d like to speak to Lieutenant-Commander Minkowski.” 

“Speaking,” she grumbled, pushing herself into a sitting position. The early morning sun was just barely peeking through the window shades, casting pink light into their bedroom. At some point during the night Gilbert and Sullivan had wormed their way in between Minkowski and Dominik, leaving the bed crowded and a little too hot. It wasn’t as comforting as she remembered it being. 

Minkowski probably would have gotten up soon anyway, so she got out of bed and walked downstairs to finish taking the call. 

“Great to hear from you, Renée! Can I call you Renée? Well, I heard about you and your darling girlfriend—is she your girlfriend? Are you two using traditional relationship terms? Anyway, you and the famous Captain Lovelace! I must have you two on my show, can you do an interview Wednesday? Is that too soon, not soon enough?”

Minkowski blinked. Vaughn spoke like the world had too many words and it was his job to use them all as fast as possible, asking questions and moving on before she had a chance to open her mouth, having both sides of the conversation at once. “I… What?” 

“You. Me. Isabel. Wednesday night! You’ll be the talk of the town, Renée! Not that you aren’t already, the whole of Twitter is shipping you two ladies.” 

Minkowski shook her head. The hardwood was slick and cool under her bare feet, and she absently toed at a raised edge while she tried to figure out what on earth was happening. “The whole of Twitter is what now?” 

“Look, it’s not that hard of a concept,” Vaughn said. “I want an interview with you and your girlfriend! All the juicy details, romantic space getaways, the whole schebang. Yes or no?” 

“I’m sorry,” Minkowski said, barely hearing herself. “You’ll have to call back later, I’m busy right now.” And she hung up and dropped onto the couch as soon as she’d walked close enough. Their wine glasses from last night still sat on the table, partially full, and she downed both of them. 

This was going to require a scheme. 

She picked up the phone off the couch cushions and dialed Lovelace’s number. The new numbers of her former crewmates had been one of the first things she’d memorized after they returned home.

“Whassit?” Lovelace mumbled after the call nearly went to voicemail. “M’sleeping.” 

“Lovelace, it’s me. We have a problem.” Minkowski rubbed at her forehead as she spoke, hoping to all hell Lovelace would be too tired to say ‘I told you so’. 

“I told you so.” 

Damn. “I just got a call from Vaughn. Of ‘Your Nightly Vaughn’,” Minkowski said, without acknowledging that Lovelace had, in fact, told her so. 

“S’he that talk show host with all th’weird sound effect bits?” Lovelace asked, and for a second Minkowski could picture her in crystalline detail. Curtains drawn in the tiny apartment she rented, curled up around a wrinkled pillow with most of the blanket hanging off the bed and her hair pulled back into a bun that was flat on one side from the way she’d slept on it. The image struck Minkowski so vividly that it almost hurt, the knowledge that Lovelace was there and Minkowski was here. 

It shouldn’t have. Here was where Minkowski should be, here was where she could hear her husband rolling out of bed with a thump and Gilbert and Sullivan’s nails clicking on the stairs as they ran down before him. 

Here was not Lovelace. 

“Minkowski? You still there?” 

Minkowski shook herself out of her stupor and nodded. Then she remembered she was on the phone. “Yes, I’m here. And yes, that’s the one. He wants an interview with you and I. As girlfriends.” 

No response, a soft crackle the only sound coming through the phone line. “Well, shit. How does Koudelka feel about this?” 

Minkowski sighed. “I don’t know. He just handed me the phone this morning.” 

“Sounds like you should maaaaybe talk to him.” 

“Maybe.” 

“Minkowski…” The gentle disapproval was evident in Lovelace’s voice, and this was why Minkowski alternately couldn’t stand the woman and adored her. She pushed Minkowski to do the right thing, even when she really, really didn’t want to. 

“Look, I’ll call you back. We can talk about whether or not we’re going to do an interview later, okay? And we should tell Eiffel about it. Do you think he’s got any interview requests?”

Lovelace laughed, the sound overly loud and staticky. “He’s not the one who just simultaneously came out and admitted he actively had a significant other to a horde of press. And yeah, talk to you later. Got another call coming in, Mister Sandman says I need one more dream.” 

Minkowski was still laughing when the beep sounded the end of the call. Ridiculous. 

Gilbert and Sullivan tumbled down the stairs seconds after, barking over each other to get Minkowski’s attention first. 

“Good morning to you too,” she said, obediently bending over to pat them. 

Dominik descended the stairs somewhat more gently behind them, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “So what did that host want? And while you’re answering, would you like some coffee?” 

Minkowski nodded, smiling at him. “Coffee would be great.” Her expression twisted into something less happy as she considered the first question. “He wanted an interview.”

“That much I surmised.” 

This morning dance was unfamiliar now, despite how well she’d known it in the years before she’d left. Dominik, humming his way through pulling out the coffeemaker (he’d upgraded while she was gone, a new model she didn’t recognize) and yet adding in the same terrible instant mix he’d used since they first met. Her, sitting on the couch petting their dogs, and… thinking about how much she didn’t want to be here having this conversation. 

“An interview with me and Lovelace,” she said. “As girlfriends.” 

Dominik stilled. “Really.” 

She didn’t continue, let him connect the dots in his head. 

“Are you going to go through with it?” he asked.

It was easier to keep petting Gilbert and Sullivan than it was to look at him while she answered. “I don’t know. Things just keep getting bigger, and I don’t want to lie, but we can’t afford the knock to our reputations right now when we’re going to sue Goddard soon.” 

“Also,” Dominik said pointedly. “You’re married.” He held up his hand, the simple gold band sitting where it had always sat. 

Minkowski touched her own hand, ring finger bare. Her ring sat in a drawer by their bed upstairs. She kept meaning to put it on, she really did... 

“I know, I only—” 

Dominik’s phone rang again. Minkowski picked it up—there wasn’t a caller ID, just a number with an area code she didn’t recognize. She tossed it to Dominik, who answered with a frown on his face. 

“Hello, this is Dominik Koudelka, head of—oh. Oh, it’s… I didn’t think you made calls personally. No, Captain Lovelace isn’t here right now. I can put you through to Renée—I mean, Minkowski. … I suppose you could call me that, yes.” 

He walked around the counter and went to hand the phone to Minkowski. “It’s Lin Manuel Miranda. He wants to meet you and Lovelace, and has invited the two of you to a showing of Hamilton and the post-show cast party.” 

“I—Can you tell him to call back?” Minkowski said in a strangled voice. 

Dominik raised his eyebrows, and she nodded furiously at him. “I can’t talk to Lin Manuel Miranda right now! I’m in pajamas! I haven’t brushed my teeth yet, I haven’t, I can’t. Tell him I’m busy.” 

He put the phone back to his ear. “I’m sorry, Mr. Miranda, but she can’t come to the phone right now. I suggest you call back later, if it’s no trouble.” 

After hanging up, Dominik sighed. “Darling, I love you. But I will need to do things other than field your calls for the next three weeks. I think you need an agent.” 

Minkowski dropped her head into her hands. 

This was not how this morning was supposed to go.

* * *

“So… How’s it going?” Eiffel ventured. 

The three Hephaestus crew members plus Dominik sat around an outdoor table at a cafe, picking at bagels and Eiffel doing his level best to make small talk. 

“Talked to Hera this morning,” he continued. “She’s doing well, I think? The scientists have her pretty busy with tests so they can finish her new body, but she seems happy.” His brow furrowed as he stared into his coffee cup. “I hope she is. She deserves it.” 

Minkowski nodded. There, at least, was a point of logic she could emphatically get behind.

Eiffel cleared his throat. “Alright… Look, I don’t wanna jump the shark here or anything, but someone’s gotta talk about the elephant in the room.” 

Dominik looked up from his cup of coffee, making eye contact with Eiffel. “Do you mean the fact that the better part of the world believes my wife and Captain Lovelace have been in a relationship since before they left the Hephaestus?” 

“Yep, that’s the one. That supremely uncomfortable and incredibly awkward elephant. Uh-huh.”

Lovelace shook her head. “Look, I don’t know what Minkowski’s told you, but for what it’s worth, we never intended for it to get this far. But—” 

Dominik cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I know, I know. But you can’t afford for the press to turn on you now, with the trial coming up and your public image playing into the sympathy aspect of it so heavily. I started as a regular reporter, you know. I have a vague idea how the news works.” 

Minkowski felt like she should say something, shifting from side to side in her seat. She didn’t want to lose any of the people around her to her own stupid words and decisions, but looking at Lovelace frowning at her bagel and Dominik shaking his head at her lack of response… Maybe she already had.

No, Renée Minkowski was not going to give up that easily. This would not beat her. 

“It sounds like we all have a vague idea of what’s going on,” she said brusquely. “Now, Dominik—it sounded this morning like you had an idea of how to handle it?” 

He nodded. “I know some people in public relations business, and I could call them up and see if any agents are willing to take on your case as charity. An agent would help the three of you manage your public appearances, control the story, and—” 

A short, chubby woman pulled a lawn chair up to their table, sitting down in between Minkowski and Dominik. “And so on and so forth, Koudelka, they know the story already.” She turned to Minkowski, holding out her hand for a strong handshake. “Abilene Garner, at your service.” 

Dominik coughed. “I may have already called some of the people that I know.” 

Garner smiled brightly. “I work fast.” She ran a hand through her hair, pushing short strands out of her face. “Now, tell me why you four, exactly, need my services. It can’t have anything to do with how Koudelka’s wife has been gone for the past three years on ‘company business’, hm?” 

“You’re smart,” Lovelace said. 

“Is that a compliment or an insult?” Garner quipped. 

“Yes.” 

Eiffel laughed nervously, leaning across the table. His shadow cast the tile of it in stark relief. “Look, before this devolves any further, let me summarize. Once upon a time—” 

“Nope,” Minkowski and Lovelace said in unison. They looked at each other, smiling hesitantly for half a second before Minkowski tore her gaze back to Garner.

“I am Dominik’s wife,” she admitted. “The one gone for three years. And now…” she trailed off. 

“Now the entire western hemisphere thinks the two of us are star-crossed lovers,” Lovelace finished, deadpan. She crossed her arms and sat back in her chair, eyeing Garner. “That clear enough for you?” 

Garner pulled a messenger bag filled to bursting onto her lap, digging through it to get out several packets and folders of important-looking papers. “Crystal,” she declared. “Now, I am willing to take your case on pro bono, as it were, but I do still need you to sign the requisite paperwork.” 

There were papers all over the table, ink-blotted and coffee-stained but legible, by the time they all finished signing along the necessary dotted lines. Every bagel had long since been eaten and Eiffel was more than halfway into a second slice of lemon bread. 

Overhead, the sun had slid behind the peaked roof of the cafe, casting their table in shadow. 

Minkowski dropped her pen after signing on what had better be the last line, and let her head fall alongside it on the table. “Eiffel, as your superior officer, I command you relinquish a piece of that lemon bread.” 

“Sharing is caring, but have you considered that what we’re sharing is a mutual pleasure at my happiness at having this piece of lemon bread all to myself?” 

“Eiffel.” 

He broke off a piece of the lemon bread and handed it to her. 

Garner cleared her throat. “Now that we’ve got the paperwork out of the way, I’m afraid there is one thing I need to talk to you about before you can all head home.” 

“Go for it,” Lovelace murmured, eyeing the remnants of Eiffel’s lemon bread. 

“Look, I’m not here to sugarcoat things. Koudelka, Minkowski can’t live with you right now. Maybe later, after this has all blown over, but right now? People aren’t asking questions about you, and we need to keep it that way.” Garner spoke as she gathered papers from the table, brushing loose crumbs onto the ground and not making eye contact with anyone. “I’m not saying that Minkowski and Lovelace have to move in with each other, but Minkowski and Koudelka—you two can’t live together.” 

“That’s…” Dominik sighed. “That’s understandable.” 

“Wait, where am I supposed to live?” Minkowski asked. 

Garner sighed, a short, fast exhale. “I’m not saying you and Lovelace have to move in with each other—”

“But you’re not _not_ saying it either,” Eiffel finished. “Geez.” 

This was not going the way Minkowski had hoped it would. Although thinking about it now, she wasn’t sure how she had imagined it going. All optimism for the future had been thoroughly smashed by everything that Goddard had done to them in space. Here on Earth, that translated into definitely not expecting good things out of a meeting to talk about what they would have to do about her fake relationship with Lovelace. 

To be fair, she wasn’t sure even the most optimistic person in the world could come up with a happy ending for all involved here. 

She had to make this easier on everyone else. It wasn’t their fault she’d said this, and when she glanced over at her husband, well. Let’s leave it at ‘Minkowski did not want to look at her husband right now’. 

“I’ll do it,” she said.

Everyone looked at her at once, and she stared back without fear. She had to own this. 

“It’s my fault this happened, and if you don’t mind me living with you, Lovelace, I think that the more the media believes us the better. I want—I _need_ to make this work.” She shook her head, unable to get out the words that would make this better. “Goddard needs to be taken down, and for that to happen we have to be perfect in the public eye.”

Lovelace nodded slowly. “You’re right.”

And as the sun sank further towards the horizon, the five of them sat in silence. There was so much to do, rent agreements to alter and papers to file and lives to pack up and move, and yet… No one seemed to be ready to leave this cafe. The crumbs of lemon bread on the table and the coffee rings on its surface, the last remnants of whatever their lives had been like before this conversation. 

Everything was going to be different.

* * *

Minkowski didn’t have as much to pack as she thought she would have. Three years in space did that to a person. 

Dominik didn’t say a word to her unless she said something first, and even then it was short questions and shorter responses. It was almost worse this way than if he’d screamed or they’d fought and thrown things. It was almost like giving up. 

“Nik,” Minkowski began, twisting the last of her unpacked clothes in her hands. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. He sat on their bed, playing half-hearted tug of war with Gilbert. Sullivan lay at his feet, tail thumping against the floor in a steady wag. “The dogs and I will survive even without you, I promise.” 

“That’s not—" She sighed. “That’s not what I was going to say.” 

Dominik looked at her, guarded, careful. “What more is there to say?” 

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” 

“For what?” he asked, and there was a bitterness in the set of his gaze. “Losing yourself in space for so many years? Running back to your crew at the first opportunity, leaving me here again?” Even with the melancholy on his face, Dominik almost didn’t sound like he cared about the questions he asked. Careful uninterest colored his voice in every syllable, making each inquiry sound like nothing more than a question about the weather. 

But his hands gripped the chew toy so tightly that his knuckles went white, and his body was taut with the effort of controlling his emotions.

Minkowski didn’t say anything in her defense. 

Like Dominik had said, what more was there to say? She did and was continuing to do all of the things he had mentioned. 

Dominik shook his head, something almost like a rueful smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Now I should be the one apologizing. That wasn’t fair to you.”

Minkowski stood, leaving a final wrinkled t-shirt unfolded on top of her suitcase. “No,” she said slowly. “You’re right. You’re my husband, Nik, I shouldn’t push you away. We can make it through this together.” As she spoke, she started pacing, back and forth across their small room. Sullivan stood and followed her, whining at her stressed tone.

“Together,” Dominik echoed. He pushed himself up off of the bed and stepped out in front of her. Minkowski stopped. She didn’t say a word, just stood silently. There was nothing between them but a space of a few inches, filled with swirling dust motes and emotions neither of them wanted to name.

The space felt like so much more than physical distance. 

Dominik took her hand. “Renée,” he told her. “Do what you need to do. I made it through your time on the Hephaestus just fine, and I’ll make it through this as well.” 

“It won’t be long,” she promised. “I’ll be back before you know it, we are going to be fine.” 

He just smiled at her. It was not a happy smile. “I know,” he said. “You’re going to be fine.” He pulled her into a hug and gently kissed her forehead. “I’m going to take Gilbert and Sullivan for a walk, okay? See you when I get back.” At the word ‘walk’, both German Shepherds jumped to their feet to go fetch their leashes. Dominik hugged Minkowski once more, so tight it was almost uncomfortable, and followed them downstairs. 

That wasn’t a goodbye, she told herself. It wasn’t. They’d been through so much, they deserved so much more than that. More than unspoken I love you’s and unfamiliar embraces. 

She shook her head.

There was still packing to finish, and moping wasn’t going to help get any of it done. 

As she folded that last shirt and headed into the bathroom to ensure that there were no more pieces of herself she’d left there, she began to notice the details in the bedroom she’d shared with Dominik for years before she’d left on the Hephaestus.

There were the little things, like the dog hair on every upholstered surface or the way he always left that day’s clothes tossed over his dresser to put away the next morning. There were larger details—Dominik must have had the walls painted while she was gone, they’d changed from a gross sort of beige that had come with the house to a lovely pale blue. 

The two of them had wanted to paint those walls together, but had never found the time. 

Their bed was shifted closer to the wall on her side. Minkowski hadn’t noticed till just now, scuffs on the wall and depressions in the carpet speaking to the heavy frame’s path in the room. He wouldn’t have needed any space on that side, not without her there to get up next to him in the morning. 

The more Minkowski looked around, the less of herself she saw in this room. 

If she’d died orbiting Wolf 359, if she’d been made a brainwashed zombie forever, Dominik would have barely had to move a thing. 

Minkowski shook herself out of her reverie, reminding herself that he had thought she was dead. He wouldn’t have abandoned her if he hadn’t known her fate, and everyone thought they had known the fate of those poor souls on the Hephaestus. Dominik had believed she was dead already. 

And here she was. Alive and well. 

Or at least alive. 

This line of thought was taking her nowhere fast, and she sighed heavily. Focus on what you can do right now, she reminded herself. Stay here, stay real. Keep yourself busy. What needs to be done right now?

She glanced around their room, giving it another once-over for anything she might need. 

“Nik!” she called out, forgetting for a second that he wasn’t here. “Can you—right.” 

Minkowski zipped her suitcase closed and took it downstairs. She’d have to check that there were no more of her belongings downstairs by herself. When he returned from the walk, he’d drop her off at Lovelace’s apartment. 

They were going to be fine. Minkowski and Lovelace would keep up this charade for as long as it took to bring Goddard down and they would stay good friends, and Minkowski would keep in touch with Dominik, and when it was all over they were going to move back in together and things were going to work out. 

They had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things aren't great, are they? Minkowski's doing her best.  
> Next update should come January 6th or 7th.


	3. Chapter 3

 

Minkowski had been in a lot of awkward situations in her life. None, however, could have been half as awkward as Dominik dropping her off in front of Lovelace’s apartment. He drove off as soon as Lovelace opened the door, not even getting out of the car. Minkowski watched him leave.

When she turned back to Lovelace, the other woman was leaning against her doorframe and looking at Minkowski. “So…” Lovelace said. “Everything alright with you two?”

“Can I unpack my things?” Minkowski asked, ignoring the question for now. She’d tell Lovelace about it later; she didn’t have the energy to talk about that at the moment. “I’m just… tired.”

Lovelace nodded, stepping back from her doorway with a mock bow. “Welcome to my—our humble abode. There’s the connected living area and kitchen, complete with sofa-bed that one of us can sleep on, and then the hallway at the back leads to the bathroom and bedroom.”

The apartment was small, would be cramped if it weren’t for how bare it was. Lovelace had been in space even longer than Minkowski—she’d had nothing to come home to.

Guess that made Minkowski the lucky one. Funny how it didn’t feel like that right now.

“Where should I put my suitcase?” she asked.

Lovelace shrugged. “There’s a spot between the couch and the wall, should be easy enough there.”

This was not how Minkowski wanted their cohabitation to go. They were friends, good friends, and things shouldn’t be this awkward. She dropped her suitcase next to the couch with more force than was needed. Lovelace winced when it scraped the wall on its way down.

“You know, I do have to actually pay for this place. That includes any damages done.”

Minkowski turned to face her, hands on her hips. Distantly, she was aware she was about to overreact. She had always been so good at control right up until she wasn’t, and then… Then things got messy. “And this place is so valuable?” she asked, voice dry as the Sahara.

Lovelace bristled. “Look, not all of us had husbands with cushy jobs and nice houses to come back to, okay?”

“You think I don’t know that?” Minkowski shot back. The room seemed to grow hot, and something about Minkowski felt solid and real for once on this godforsaken earth. She took a step towards Lovelace, towards the woman she had in this moment very much left her husband for. Even if it wasn’t truly in that way. Even if maybe she wanted—she didn’t want, she couldn’t want. Especially not now.

Because right now, Lovelace was just a few feet away from her, hair coming loose from her braid and cheeks flushed dark with frustration and she was still gorgeous as hell and Minkowski couldn’t remember the last time her blood sang like this.

“Minkowski!” Lovelace snapped. “Are you even listening?”

“No,” she returned, taking a step closer. “What are you going to do about it?” Something inside her asked her what the hell she thought she was doing.

She honestly wasn’t sure.

Lovelace was leaning forward, into her space. “You are playing a dangerous game, Commander,” she murmured. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.”

Minkowski matched her lean, till they were so close as to be almost sharing breath. “Captain, my captain, I would never,” she breathed. There was a second when they both swayed in, caught by each other’s gravity like orbiting stars. Their eyes locked together, dark and darker still, heady and dangerous.

Minkowski couldn’t do it. She breathed in—their chests almost touched between them—and stepped back. “Good job, Lovelace!” she said, imbuing her words with as much joviality as she could muster. “Very believable. No one will suspect a thing.” She wouldn’t betray Dominik like that.

No matter how much she wanted to, because she did not want to at all. Her eye was not caught by the way Lovelace bit her lip after Minkowski stepped away, either. There were a lot of things Minkowski was not, and all of them were ‘doing this, right now’.

Lovelace looked at her. There was something in her face, the curve of her lips and the look in her eye. Something Minkowski didn’t dare name. Then she shook her head and laughed, long and loud and close to happy. “Sure, Minkowski. Sure.”

Minkowski took another couple steps back until the backs of her knees hit the couch, afraid that if she didn’t keep walking backwards she’d start moving forward again. And she wasn’t sure she’d have the self control to stop another time.

“Alright, darling,” Lovelace said mock-sappily. “As long as we’re practicing for the cameras, do tell me, your loving girlfriend, what you’d like me to cook for our romantic dinner date tonight—you know, just like the one we have every night.” She stood at the junction between tiled kitchen floor and living room carpet, curtsying and gesturing primly as a housewife from the fifties.

Minkowski shook her head, but couldn’t stop a smile. “Oh, sugar pie,” she cooed, “I just adore that spiced salmon filet you cooked on our first week anniversary.”

Lovelace held a hand to her mouth, the picture of total shock. “Sweetpea, I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid I haven’t the supplies for that. Your choices for tonight are, I believe…” she trailed off, moving to check in her kitchen cupboards and fridge. Minkowski sat on the couch and leaned back, enjoying its worn yet comfortable embrace.

“Ramen,” Lovelace said, placing a packet on the counter, visible from where Minkowski sat on the couch. “Expired peanut butter.” She set the jar next to the packet. “And, oh, look! It’s more ramen!”

Minkowski laughed, breaking her impression of such an adoring partner. “We’re going grocery shopping tomorrow.

“Can’t,” Lovelace sighed. As she spoke, she got out a small pot and filled it with water. “We’ve got that Goddard meeting early tomorrow morning. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like doing much else productive after meeting with those assholes.”

Optimism was a good idea in some situations—not usually in situations involving Goddard Futuristics. Minkowski could only nod in response. She’d forgotten about that meeting. It would be their first official public appearance after their lie had really gotten traction.

For lack of anything else to do but mope, Minkowski stood and walked over to the kitchen. She watched Lovelace put the pot on the stove and grab an almost empty carton of eggs from the fridge. The former captain looked up to see Minkowski watching her and shrugged. “I ate a lot of ramen in college. The knowledge of how to cook it so it’s at least somewhat nutritious is still rolling around in my brain somewhere.”

Minkowski just nodded again, leaning on the counter to keep watching Lovelace move around her small kitchen. She looked at home there, in way Minkowski hadn’t thought Lovelace would look on Earth. It had been hard to imagine her anywhere but in space, fierce and wild and impossible.

Here, she smiled at Minkowski while dumping noodle squares into boiling water and immediately swore and had to fish spice packets out of the water. Here, Minkowski couldn’t take advantage of a lack of gravity to pretend they were of equal height. She had to look up at Lovelace to meet her eyes, look past the arch of her neck and the wicked grin on her lips and really see her.

She looked so human.

Sometimes Minkowski forgot that she technically wasn’t, anymore. That the Lovelace Minkowski knew had never been human.

“You doing okay there?”

“Hm?”

“You’re quiet.” Lovelace cracked an egg into the broth, stirring it around to cook in the boiling water. “At least, when you’re not shouting at me about my shitty apartment.”

Minkowski shook her head. “I’m sorry about that. I’ve just had a long day.”

Lovelace snorted. “Tell me about it.” She removed the ramen from the heat, splitting it into two separate bowls. Offering one to Minkowski with a bow, she smiled at her. “Ramen, my dear?”

Minkowski smiled back at her, less jokingly than she’d meant to. “I’d love some.”

They ate their ramen on the couch, Minkowski sitting with her legs curled underneath her, leaning into Lovelace’s side. She reasoned with herself that it was just the most logical way to sit together, and that they’d need to be comfortable with touching each other for their charade to seem real to the people watching. The two of them had been comfortable with this amount of touch for a long time, sure, but it never hurt to have more practice.

Both women were silent while they ate, the soup with egg in it heartier than Minkowski remembered from her own desperate college dinners. She’d rarely eaten ramen, anyway, preferring protein bars and instant rice meals.

Eating it now was nice. The quiet was cozy, the small room just enough space to be warmed by the slowly cooling oven and the heat Minkowski and Lovelace shared on the couch.

She didn’t want to get up and put their bowls away. Then Lovelace would go to her bedroom and Minkowski would stay here on the couch, and… And she’d be alone.

Minkowski didn’t want to be alone right now. She set her bowl down on the table and Lovelace followed suit, but neither of them made a move to get up.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Lovelace asked. “I hear all sorts of films come out when you’re lost in space for three years.”

Minkowski yawned. “Can we maybe just sit here for a few more minutes?” she asked, before even really processing the words coming out of her mouth. She flushed a little, but didn’t take the request back.

Lovelace just smiled at her, small and soft. “Sure. We do have that meeting tomorrow, after all. A movie’s probably a bad idea.”

Minkowski was already nodding off as she nodded her assent, more quickly than she’d gone to sleep in months.

Of course, nothing could ever be perfect.

Minkowski woke in a cold sweat and complete darkness, not even moonlight from outside coming in to light the room. Lovelace was already awake at her side—the other woman must sleep even more lightly than Minkowski did.

“Hey, hey,” she murmured. “I just got up to turn off the light. You okay?”

Minkowski sighed, heavy and regretful. “Nightmares.”

Lovelace just nodded. She and Eiffel were the only other people on Earth who understood the nightmares the Hephaestus gave you, the deep and quiet ones that got under your skin and never really left.

Dominik tried, he really did.

But he wasn’t there.

There was nothing to be seen in this darkness. No warm glow of a bedside lamp being flicked on, no worried and tired eyes blaming her as much as they tried not to.

There was just her and Lovelace, alone in a darkened room. Minkowski breathed in once, twice, trying to get her nervous system under control. Lovelace gently put one hand on Minkowski’s shoulder, squeezed it once. “Do you want to be alone right now, or should I stay?” she asked.

After everything she had been through, this question would not be the thing that made Minkowski cry.

“It’s fine,” she got out, barely keeping her voice level. “I’ve dealt with these nightmares before, I just have to lay down and go back to sleep.”

She didn’t hear anything from Lovelace besides her breathing and the rustle of her clothes as she shifted to put an arm around Minkowski and hug her.

“I don’t want to keep you here all night,” Minkowski said when the silence became too much to bear.

There was the sound and feeling of Lovelace shaking her head, her hair brushing against the couch and tickling Minkowski’s bare neck.

“Minkowski, I didn’t agree to this whole schebang out of the goodness of my heart. You’re one of my best friends, and I know this may be hard to believe,” Lovelace said dryly, “but I do, as it happens, care about you. And there are a lot of things I don’t know, but I know nightmares. Do you want me to stay?”

There were no words Minkowski could say, nothing that encapsulated the way she felt in this moment. It was dangerous. Because even if—okay, even _though_ Lovelace cared about her, even though they were friends, even if Lovelace was more than willing to jokingly flirt with her, it was nothing more than that. She couldn’t know how much this meant to Minkowski right now; she couldn’t know the dangerous amounts of feelings bubbling in the pit of Minkowski’s stomach.

… Minkowski could afford to ignore all of the warning signs for one night, right?

She never did say anything to Lovelace’s inquiry, just pulled the other woman’s arms around her closer and laid down on the couch. Lovelace came with her, lying with her chest pressed to Minkowski’s back and their legs intertwined.

Only because of the nightmares. Only because of the charade. Only temporary, all of this.

Minkowski didn’t wake again till the sun hit her face through the cheap glass of the window, making her grumble in displeasure and turn her face into Lovelace’s shoulder.

The sun was barely over the horizon, but apparently with an east-facing window like this one you were treated to a lovely and extremely early view of the sunrise every morning. Normally Minkowski would have been awake for hours, and she suspected Lovelace would have as well. This morning was different. This morning her back and neck were sore and she was curled up almost too tightly to make room for both of them on the couch, but Lovelace’s breath was warm on the back of her neck and Minkowski couldn’t bring herself to wake up the other woman just yet.

That was, until her cell phone beeped at her (barely audible from the confines of her suitcase) and she realized what time it was and what they had to do today.

“Damn it, Lovelace, we’re going to be late!” Minkowski rolled off the couch, barely catching herself on the side before hitting the floor. There was no time to shower, she just shook Lovelace’s shoulder (and jumped back to avoid being punched by her—Lovelace did not wake up happily and Minkowski did not blame her for it) and went to grab her nicer clothes from her suitcase.

By the time she was changed and had pulled her hair up into a bun, Lovelace was ready as well. She tossed Minkowski an apple as the two of them headed out the door, ready to catch the closest bus to their meeting location.

 

* * *

 

They were not the last people to arrive in the conference room. That honor went to Eiffel, rushing in barely a minute before the meeting was due to start. The room was almost full, a long table lined with chairs taking up the majority of the space. Goddard and their agents and assorted people took up one side, and it took more self control than she would have liked to admit to keep Minkowski from punching Kepler in his stupid smug face. He did not have the right to smirk like that, not after everything that had happened. He wasn’t even that good at fulfilling evil plots in the end, he’d had to have Cutter and his cronies come rescue him.

It was the first time she’d seen all of them since the end of their mission. Cutter, Rachel, Kepler, Jacobi, Pryce… The whole gang, together again.  
Minkowski didn’t want to start a scene. She settled for clenching her fists, her nails digging crescents into her palms. The chairs were uncomfortable, but at least she knew her friends were on this side of the table. Eiffel, Lovelace, and a wireless relay and set of speakers connected to the lab Hera’s consciousness currently resided in. They were in this together.

Garner was going over files at one end of their table, comparing notes with a woman Minkowski was vaguely familiar with—she thought she was the intern at some tech startup who originally picked up Eiffel’s transmissions. The intern had been a key piece in bringing them home, and Minkowski felt vaguely guilty she couldn’t remember the woman’s name.

At the head of the table, a tall, slim man cleared his throat. “I am Mr. Engelson, I’ll be your mediator for today’s session. Now, let us all remember the goals for today. Bringing this case to court will only prolong the expense and time for all involved, and if a civil solution can be reached in these halls everything can…” He droned on, never once varying the tone or speed of his words. It was all more of the same, anyway.

Minkowski closed her eyes. She just needed a moment. It was so quiet in this room, but what sounds there were seemed to grate in her skull. The rush of the air-conditioning working overtime, the soft sounds people were bound to make, the occasional static pop from Hera’s speakers. Cutter was tapping a pencil on his side of the table in a steady rhythm.

God, this room was stifling.

Someone grabbed her hand and squeezed, once, gently, and Minkowski opened her eyes to see Lovelace looking back at her. The other woman nodded at Mr. Engelson, who appeared to be wrapping up his speech. Minkowski smiled gratefully at her and returned her attention to the mediator.

She didn’t let go of Lovelace’s hand.

“Now, may I have any comments from the table?” Mr. Engelbert stated.

Of course things began as civil as he wanted them to. Or at least, Goddard’s brand of slimy smug sarcasm that passed as civility.

Someone would ask a question, glossing over the harsh realities of the Hephaestus in favor of a more palatable mention of hard times and difficult choices.

Someone else would put forth a solution, something that wasn’t nearly close enough to Minkowski’s preferred method of burning Goddard Industries to the ground and sending everyone organizing the space-hell trips to jail for a long, long time.

It was excruciating.

Honestly, Minkowski was almost glad when it all went to shit.

“So,” Kepler began, drawing the word out in that way he did. “Have we considered that all of the former crew of the Hephaestus seem to be doing just fine? After all, they’re all here today. Hale and hearty. Maybe they don’t need as much help as they’re asking for.”

Lovelace sucked in a breath, eyebrows drawn low and mouth a tight line.

Before she could jump over the table to physically assault Kepler, Eiffel spoke up. “I don’t know, Kepler, we could really use a hand from you guys, if you know what I mean.”

Kepler, tragically, did not lose control and start shouting and cause a scene. Minkowski would have loved that. He just smirked a little, cruel and cold and still too damn smug.

Down the table from him, Rachel cleared her throat. “Vague notions aside, can we get back to the specifics, please? We don’t have all day.”

“An excellent idea,” Cutter agreed. “Some of us have families to get back to!” Before anyone could call Cutter out on any single human being enjoying his company enough to be considered a family, he kept speaking. “Speaking of families, how is yours, Renee? Is Dominik well lately? I hear you two are… going through some difficult times.”

“That was uncalled for!” Lovelace was standing up, slamming her hands on the table.

Eiffel started talking over her, probably something in the same general vein.

Minkowski wasn’t certain. She sat still in her chair and folded her hands together tightly in her lap. How was Dominik?

She’d meant to call him this morning. Let him know how she was doing, how much she missed him. Because she did, she really did.

The room almost dissolved around her, both in the sense that it didn’t feel like she was quite there anymore and the discussion breaking down into loud arguments on all sides of the table. They were going to need more sessions than this.

A harsh screech of feedback whipped through the room, silencing everyone.

“Would you all-all just be quiet for one moment!” Hera shouted.

Everyone was quiet.

The AI sighed, the sound harsh through the connection. “We are getting nowhere fast with this. Eiffel, you’re lovely, but please don’t make hand jokes. Cutter, you’re horrible, don’t talk unless you absolutely have to. Especially don’t talk to make pointless comments about people’s pasts. It’s rude. Can we please all continue with the discussion? At normal volume levels?”

“Unit 214-” Pryce began.

“Nope,” Hera interrupted. “Nope, you don’t get to finish that sentence now.”

“I was just-”

This time the interruption came from the front of the room, Mr. Engelson clearing his throat once more. “I do apologize, Doctor Pryce, but I must ask you refer to all participants in this mediation by their actual names. Believe me, it will make this go much more smoothly. Now, where were we?”

They didn’t come to much of an agreement in the rest of that session, but there was at least no more shouting.

Once their time was up, the Goddard associates left the room without so much as a backward glance at anyone on the other side of the discussion.

“What now?” Eiffel asked after a moment of silence.

“I have to wait for the scientists back at my labs to re-reconnect the wiring to put me back in my head,” Hera said, with something that was almost petulant. Minkowski could imagine her, slumping back in a chair and frowning. It was odd, not having her be omniscient or omnipresent anymore.

“Hear me out here,” Eiffel began. Minkowski and Lovelace shared a look. “What if they don’t reconnect you for a little while, and we all get to hang out a while longer? I miss being with you guys, it feels like the only times we’ve been together lately are for stupid publicity things or to talk strategy.”

“Speaking of strategy,” Minkowski started, and Eiffel groaned. She held up her hands in surrender. “Just let me finish, okay? I think we should hire a lawyer. Goddard probably has tons of legal advocacy on their side, and we need someone on ours.”  
“Cool, great,” Eiffel said. “But consider: we do that later.”

There was a knock at the door frame of the conference room, and the three of them with eyes turned to face the doorway. Eiffel nudged Hera’s single camera to face it.

Garner stood at the doorway, still holding a file. “Sorry, I had to go make sure Lily got her ride home. You know, the intern? Anyway, I don’t want to interrupt you, but one of my really good friends is a lawyer!”

“Can you ever really be friends with a lawyer?” Eiffel mused.

“She’s nice, I promise!” Garner protested, but her laughter showed she wasn’t really angry. “Look, you guys can still go out tonight and everything, and my firm will pay for the dinner if it means you two,” she gestured at Minkowski and Lovelace, “are seen out together. All part of the Abi Garner Guarantee!” She grinned and did a little bow in the fours’ direction.

As the five of them left the building, Eiffel carefully holding Hera’s connector and speakers in his arms for lack of a better bag, Garner explained to them where they were going and what would be required in this particular meeting.

Minkowski and Lovelace wouldn’t have to do too much, not yet, just look happy and maybe hold hands, smile at each other. Nothing more than they’d already done. The lawyer Garner wanted to introduce everyone to would probably be there a little late, she was busy. Her name was Samantha Quinn, and according to Garner, she would probably defend the moon from the stars in a court case if the moon asked her nicely.

“Yeah, Sam’s a darling,” she continued. “She’s not part of a firm so she can’t afford to take y’all on for free, but I promise she has very competitive rates. It’ll be great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so late!!! hope it's enjoyable?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> consistent update schedule? i don't know her

The restaurant they went to later that night was nothing fancy, some midscale affair where their mismatched party wouldn’t stand out too much. 

 

They got Hera settled in a corner where no part of her could be accidentally tripped over or stolen, and the rest of them filed in to sit around her. Eiffel and Garner were on one side of their booth, Minkowski and Lovelace on the other. When they sat down, an appropriately normal amount of distance between the two of them, Garner coughed slightly and looked at them. 

 

The two women glanced at each other, unsure of how to proceed. Garner gestured,  _ like, you know! _ at them and slid an arm around Eiffel’s shoulders for a moment in an example. 

 

Minkowski shrugged, and looked at Lovelace questioningly.

 

“Go ahead, darling,” Lovelace murmured, shifting closer. Minkowski put her arm around Lovelace’s waist. (Look, she could have done shoulders if she wanted to. She wasn’t that much shorter than Lovelace, and anyone who told you so was lying.)

 

Garner beamed. “You two are naturals! I texted Sam, but she’ll probably be a while, so we should order food soon.” 

 

Their server didn’t seem to have any idea who they were, which was honestly more than a small relief. Just regular customers, that was them. Normal people at a normal restaurant who’d never been in space and weren’t faking a relationship to get good press. 

 

The place was fairly busy, and all around them floated the strains of dinner conversations and low music from invisible speakers. 

 

Garner talked more than Eiffel did at his most verbose, chattering on about the outlook for their trial and the weather today and how good the new Star Wars movies were. Eiffel, who’d binge-watched all of them as soon as possible, was more than happy to talk to her about that. Even Hera joined in on the conversation about droids in the Star Wars universe and the amount of rights they lacked, as beings who seemed often to be their own people. 

 

It was nice. It felt normal. Normal was so different than it used to be for her, but Minkowski couldn’t bring herself to mind. 

 

“Hey,” Lovelace whispered, her breath soft against Minkowski’s ear. “Ten bucks says this Sam used to date Garner.” 

 

Minkowski glanced at her out of the corner of her eyes. “Really?” 

 

Lovelace nodded. “Have you been listening to her? Every time she mentions the woman, she grins.” 

 

“You know, she’s usually already grinning.” 

 

“If you’re too chicken to take the bet, that’s your decision.” Lovelace leaned into Minkowski’s side, looking at her with a little smirk and daredevil eyes. “Just a theory.” 

 

Minkowski shook her head. “You’re incorrigible.” 

 

Lovelace blew her a kiss. “All part of my charm.” 

 

Minkowski wished she was as good at this as Lovelace. The flirting didn’t come so naturally to her, especially not here in this restaurant. The cheap lights and sticky floors, the amount of people around them… She was off guard, never certain of exactly what to say to keep up their charade. 

 

She just wanted to talk to Lovelace the way she always had. The banter and the teasing, the casual touches that were definitely one hundred percent platonic. That was safe, that was what Minkowski knew how to do. 

 

“I’ll take that bet,” she said at last. 

 

Across the table, Garner leaned in. “You guys are doing great, by the way. I totally would believe you were together if I didn’t know the truth,” she whispered. 

 

The two of them looked at her. 

 

She gave them a thumbs up. 

 

Eiffel enthusiastically copied the gesture. 

 

Sam Quinn the lawyer arrived just after their food did, and waved off their server when he tried to take her order. Sam was disheveled, probably more than Minkowski had ever seen in a lawyer. She had close-cropped pale hair and intense eyes paired with a untucked shirt but perfectly pressed suit. It was a little conflicting, but also kind of worked for her. 

 

She smiled for less than a moment at Garner before turning towards the rest of the table. “Alright, I apologize for bringing up business over dinner, but it sounds like you four need help as soon as possible.” 

 

That dinner went much the way of their breakfast meeting earlier, a haze of talking over contracts and working up papers they would be able to sign later. Minkowski barely picked at her food, shoving most of it over to share between Eiffel and Lovelace once they’d finished their meals. She just wanted to go back to Lovelace’s apartment and eat ramen. 

 

It wasn’t that the food here wasn’t wonderful or that she wasn’t grateful for Quinn’s help, but this had been a long day. 

 

After they’d gone their separate ways from the meeting, Lovelace and Minkowski had spent most of the day on the phone with various people who had promised to testify in their favor. There was Lily, from the meeting in the morning, one of their key witnesses. And others who’d helped plot a route for the shuttle that could bring them home and figured out how to get in contact, and people who’d been suspecting Goddard of illegal activities for years. 

 

Minkowski hadn’t eaten until this dinner, but somehow she still wasn’t hungry. 

 

She sighed a little, and leaned into Lovelace’s shoulder. The other woman slipped her arm around Minkowski almost automatically, supporting her so she could lean more fully on Lovelace. The restaurant was still too loud and every time she shifted in her seat, the faux leather of the booth squeaked unhappily. 

 

But it was going to be okay. They were doing their best, and Quinn and Garner were going to make sure they had people on their side. Lovelace and Eiffel and Hera were here and safe, and Lovelace specifically was here. Solid and real and comforting. 

 

Quinn closed a final binder with a snap and stuck it into a worn messenger bag along with the laptop she’d had open on the table for most of the night. “That should be all of it,” she said, somewhat wearily. “Again, I apologize for making you all do this during dinner, but I have a lot of clients and this was probably the best possible time for me. Thank you for being accommodating.” 

 

Garner elbowed her. “Sam, you gotta stop letting people convince you to take them on with a sob story and doe eyes. You’re gonna overwork yourself and burn out!” 

 

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Who was it that called me, almost in tears (that were, by the way, highly unconvincing), to tell me about these tragic star-crossed women who were being taken apart by ‘capitalism come alive’ and I needed to help them as soon as possible?” 

 

Minkowski was pretty certain she was going to owe Lovelace ten bucks. 

 

The rest of the dinner passed in a blur. Everyone went their separate ways outside of the restaurant. Hera’s receptors and speakers taken back to the lab she currently resided in, Eiffel to his own apartment, Lovelace and Minkowski to the one they shared. 

 

They’d barely gotten two steps through the door when Lovelace sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall and closing her eyes. “You ever feel like a day is purposefully out to get you?” 

 

Minkowski sat next to her, leaning against the wall to slide down it slowly. She nodded, not even bothering to speak. 

 

Lovelace let her head fall against one shoulder, looking over at Minkowski. They hadn’t turned on the lights yet so both women were still cast in shadows and moonlight. “Wanna drink shitty wine and watch a movie?” 

 

“More than anything,” Minkowski groaned. “I’ll pull up a movie on my laptop if you get the wine.” 

 

The grin Lovelace gave her in response was tired, but it was real. Minkowski returned it before getting up and settling herself on the couch. There were so many new movies that had come out while they were in space, but Minkowski didn’t have the energy for any of them right now. She was mulling over a few choices when Lovelace plopped onto the couch next to her, pulling the laptop so it sat across both of their laps. 

 

“How to Steal a Million? I’ve never seen that.” 

 

Minkowski nodded, that settling the debate for her. “You’ll like it, it’s fun. It’s about art, and—” she yawned, “—forgery, and romance.” 

 

Lovelace grinned. “Sounds very fun indeed.” She leaned over Minkowski more than was probably necessary to click play, but Minkowski found she didn’t really didn’t mind when it meant that Lovelace was so close to her. Before settling in against Minkowski on the couch, she sat up for a moment to grab the open bottle of wine she’d set on the counter. “Straight from the finest grocery store vineyards,” she promised solemnly moments before taking a swig straight from the bottle and passing it over. 

 

And that was how they passed the rest of the evening, sharing a bottle of cheap red and laughing at the quick wit on the screen before them. One unfinished bottle between the two of them wasn’t really enough to get either of them drunk, not really, but the easy push and pull between them was definitely heightened.

 

In the glow of the laptop, Lovelace looked almost ethereal. It was beautiful. Or maybe Minkowski was just more buzzed than she thought. 

 

She was turning to tell Lovelace a bit of trivia she remembered, maybe leaning a little too close, maybe her heart was beating a little too fast and she sure as hell wasn’t leaning back now. And they were so close, and it wasn’t like falling asleep together because they were awake and alert. Minkowski could take in every detail. 

  
The freckles scattered across Lovelace’s face like stars, the fullness of her lips, that look in her eyes like something miraculous. 

 

She wanted to kiss Lovelace like she hadn’t wanted to do anything in months. 

 

The force of it was too much and she had to do something, she had to move or she was going to give in. It was late and she was buzzed, that was enough of an excuse to be this dizzy, right? Oh, god, these feelings were getting her to make worse excuses than Eiffel and that was saying something. For lack of a better idea Minkowski just leaned forward further, tucking her head under Lovelace’s and pressing her face against Lovelace’s neck.

 

Lovelace was so, so warm. 

 

Minkowski sighed, and Lovelace shivered at the gust of her breath. 

 

“You doing okay, Minkowski?” she asked. Then, after a moment. “Reneé?” 

 

“M’fine,” Minkowski mumbled, not moving. “Just like you said. This day is out to get me.” 

 

Lovelace held Minkowski’s shoulders, pushing her to sit up on her own. “Well, then that means it’s been out to get both of us and I, for one, do not believe in the idea of letting the concept of time beat me in anything.” 

 

Minkowski laughed. “Damn right.” She uncapped the wine bottle, almost forgotten between them, and took another drink. The alcohol wasn’t anywhere near as warm as Lovelace, but it’d have to do. 

 

The credits were rolling.

 

Again, neither woman made a move to get up. 

 

“We should go to sleep,” Minkowski said. Someone had to say something, right?

 

“Yeah,” Lovelace said, but only after what felt like an eternity of silence. Did she sound disappointed, or was Minkowski letting her own feelings go to her head? “I’ll put the wine away. See you tomorrow?” 

 

“Tomorrow,” Minkowski agreed, and pretended she didn’t feel a twinge of loneliness the moment Lovelace got up from the couch. Minkowski closed her laptop and set it on top of her suitcase, lying back on the couch without bothering to change out of the day’s clothes. They weren’t that uncomfortable, she’d be fine sleeping in them. 

 

She closed her eyes, but even without sight she could still tell where Lovelace was. The creak of the cupboard opening and the clink of the wine bottle being put away were her in the kitchen. The soft shuffle step Minkowski could barely make out was her walking down the hallway, and at last the door to her bedroom opening and closing. 

 

And Minkowski was alone. 

 

Her eyes snapped open. Dominik. She’d meant to call Dominik tonight and tell him about their current situation. Minkowski swore softly, but let her eyes fall shut again. It was late now. Too late to call. He wouldn’t mind an update tomorrow morning, right?

 

She was asleep before she could give the matter any further thought. 

 

Minkowski woke before the sun rose. 

 

Far, far before, and when she glanced at her phone to check the time it was just prior to four in the morning. 

 

She’d dreamed about space.

 

How cold it had been in the observatory. The long stretch of time Kepler had locked her in there, before the really bad shit had even truly begun. That long without communication, it did things to a girl. 

 

Minkowski was shivering even now, clammy with sweat and still with goosebumps dancing along her skin. 

 

Lovelace wouldn’t mind if she borrowed a quick drink, right? Just to settle her nerves. 

 

She rolled off the couch more than stood, catching herself on the floor as quietly as she could. Minkowski hadn’t lived here long enough to know all the creaky spots on the cheap carpet and tile of the kitchen, but she did her best to avoid them anyway. Lovelace deserved better than to be awoken by Minkowski’s useless nightmares. 

 

Minkowski had woken up Dominik with them sometimes. There’d been a whole month when they were bad enough that he’d taken to sleeping in the guest room. It wasn’t that he wasn’t kind to her, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to comfort her when he could. Dominik just had a job and he needed the energy to be there and work during the day. He helped her get a sleep therapist and talked to her in the evenings and it was nice, it really was. 

 

It had just been lonely. Minkowski shivered again and knelt by the side of the cupboard. The kitchen was almost completely black, the moon hidden behind a thick sheet of clouds.

 

As such, it came as more than a little bit of a surprise when Minkowski put her hand out to the side to steady herself and came into contact with something most definitely soft and alive. She must have jumped ten feet in the air, swearing like a sailor. 

 

Lovelace, sitting with her back against the kitchen counter, just laughed. “Sorry, Minkowski,” she said, voice rough and tired. “Couldn’t sleep. Tell me, though, I’m curious. How exactly does one fuck a—” 

 

“Don’t start,” Minkowski grumbled. “Why didn’t you tell me you were there?” 

 

Lovelace shrugged. “It’s late. I’m drunk. Do I need more of an excuse?” 

 

Minkowski considered Lovelace’s words, how they’d mirrored her own from earlier. “No,” she decided. “Not as long as you share the wine.” 

 

Lovelace’s returning laugh was harsh and sharp. “Minkowski, light of my fucking life, we moved on from wine a long time ago.” She shoved a bottle in Minkowski’s hand—square, small, and when Minkowski smelled the top of it she could tell without even looking at the label that it was a lot more potent than whatever cheap wine they’d been sharing earlier. 

 

She took a drink. 

 

The moon came out from behind the clouds for a brief rendezvous with the earth below, its light kissing the glass of the bottle as Minkowski held it to her lips. She locked eyes with Lovelace. 

 

She took another drink, longer, relishing the burn of it in her throat. The bottle clinked as she set it to the floor and she pulled a hand across her mouth to wipe it clean. “This sucks,” she said.

 

“I almost miss space sometimes,” Lovelace sighed. “It was hell, but at least the people who wanted to kill me or dissect me were obvious about it.” 

Minkowski just sighed. “Yeah.” 

 

Lovelace reached out almost blindly, her hand brushing Minkowski’s shoulder by sheer virtue of their apartment being tiny and the kitchen being tinier still. Minkowski handed off the bottle without another word. 

 

There was an almost invisible glow from the street lamps outside, just bright enough for Minkowski to watch Lovelace’s throat work as she swallowed the alcohol. 

 

“God, you’re gorgeous,” she breathed. 

 

Maybe getting drunk on the kitchen floor of your fake lover and maybe-probably-definitely crush was a bad idea after all. 

 

Luckily, Lovelace didn’t seem to hear her. 

 

“I wonder what Eiffel and Hera are up to,” she mused. “They’re the only other people who aren’t literally murderers who know what it was like, you know?” 

 

Minkowski pulled her cell phone from her pocket. “You won’t know until you try,” she blurted, and before she knew what she was doing she dialed Eiffel’s number and let the phone ring through. 

 

“What’s up, boss?” His voice came through crackling with static, but far more awake than Minkowski would have expected from her former communications officer. “Please tell me no one is dead or in prison.” 

 

“Not yet,” Minkowski said. “We make no promises. What are you doing up?” 

 

Eiffel laughed, and she could imagine him shaking his head and shrugging. “I’ve got a sleeping bag in Hera’s lab and she’s never seen Star Trek and also doesn’t need to sleep. I give you three guesses.” 

 

Minkowski sighed, more melancholic than she meant to be. “I don’t get how you can still watch space movies.” 

 

“I do,” Lovelace interrupts. The glow of Minkowski’s phone screen just illuminated their faces, seeming so separate from their bodies in this night’s darkness. “It’s like I was saying earlier. The Hephaestus was awful and deadly and you know, filled with weird alien radiation, but… It was still home. I miss it sometimes.” 

 

“Is it weird that I miss the plant monster?” Minkowski asked. 

 

Lovelace shrugged. “I never knew it.” 

 

“Yes,” Eiffel and Hera said in unison from the other side of the phone.

 

“I’m still mad at it for the screwdriver incident,” Eiffel added. 

 

Minkowski slumped against the kitchen counter and picked up the bottle. It was heavy in her hand, the glass cool and solid. For a second she heard Kepler in her mind— _ I like the taste of it. The smell. I like the feel of it in my hands— _ but then she lifted the bottle to take a drink and the burn of it was nothing like the whiskey he had swirled in clear glasses in the Urania’s artificial gravity. 

 

“We could have died,” she blurted. “All of us.” 

 

Lovelace snickered, not unkindly. “I did die. Twice.” 

 

Minkowski shoved her with her free hand. “Don’t brag.” 

 

At that, all four people on the call began laughing. Because that was like bragging for them at that point, they’d come through all of that danger and made it out to the other side, they deserved to find the humor in it. Like college students comparing their sleep deprivation, the four of them could swap stories about near death experiences.

 

And in Lovelace’s case, actual death experiences. 

 

“Here is so different,” Hera said, almost out of the blue. “It’s not always bad, but…”

 

Eiffel finished her sentence. “It’s bad a lot.”

 

“Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ha-a-appy you guys took me back to Earth with you, but it’s a big change going from being omniscient and literally the walls around you to being trapped in a laboratory smaller than my core on the Hephaestus-us.” She sighed. The sound was so human, and Minkowski wondered what other attitudes or vocalizations the AI had picked up from them. Or if she’d known them all along.  “And I don’t have a great history with laboratories.”

 

“Tell me about it,” Eiffel agreed.

 

“I miss zero gravity,” Minkowski added.

 

Lovelace snorted. “Of course you do, Commander Reneé ‘I’m Five Foot Two And A Half, Yes The Half Makes A Difference Stop Leaving It Out’ Minkowski.” She reached out for the alcohol and Minkowski passed it over, her eyes catching on the label in the new light of her phone. Grenadian Rum. Lovely.

 

“My height has nothing to do with that,” Minkowski said, prim in a way almost mocking of her former self before she’d been on the Hephaestus. She’d been so concerned with routine and the proper way to do everything, and maybe it was the rum talking but that all seemed to matter a hell of a lot less right now.

 

… Yeah, that was definitely the rum talking.

 

“I’ll tell you what I don’t miss,” Eiffel announced. “Fucking star charts.”

 

“I’ll drink to that!” Lovelace said, raising the bottle to her lips.

 

There was a second of silence before Eiffel cleared his throat and said hastily, “I was shaking my head right there, I forgot that you guys couldn’t actually see me. Just, you know. Wishing I could drink with you. But alas, that was the old Douglas Eiffel, and also the Douglas Eiffel not currently in a highly delicate laboratory with his best friend in a place to be super damaged by spilled liquids.”

 

“I appreciate your concern,” Hera said dryly.

 

“God, what happened to us all?” Minkowski mused aloud, not particularly expecting an answer. She probably should have been expecting one, knowing her present company.

 

“I literally died.”

 

“You know, you dying is like a reboot for me. Ca-are to take a guess how many times I’ve been rebooted?”

 

“Got molested by a plant monster.”

 

She shook her head. “Honestly, that sounds about right.”

 

“It’s what happened,” Lovelace said, shrugging. “Who’s saying it’s not? Other than Goddard, they don’t count.”

The sun was kissing the horizon by the time they left the phone call, Eiffel yawning into the receiver and promising to talk to them again soon. Hera assured them he’d be safe in her rooms. Minkowski and Lovelace sat in the empty kitchen for a few moments longer rather than get up.

 

“Can we just…” Minkowski began.

 

“Hm?” Lovelace looked over at her. The early dawn light touched her face with pink fingers, drawing golden streaks in her hair and lighting up her eyes.

 

Minkowski didn’t have the courage to ask what she really wanted.

 

It wasn’t even that big of a deal, but. She just couldn’t, okay? She didn’t have to justify herself. Instead of answering her own internal crisis, Minkowski pushed it a little further down inside and leaned against Lovelace’s side. She took the rum from Lovelace, reached up to set it on the counter. “Good night,” she murmured into Lovelace’s shirt. “See you tomorrow, okay?”

 

“It’s already tomorrow, babe,” Lovelace said. There was more affection in her tone than was really warranted for a fake relationship when no cameras were around. Minkowski let herself relish that feeling more than she should, the warmth it held in her heart.

 

“Can I just sleep here?” she asked. “I slept strapped into a bunk in zero gravity, your kitchen floor can’t be that much worse.”

 

Lovelace shook her head. “Sorry, Minkowski, but we’ve got a job to do and it involves you not giving yourself spinal trauma by sleeping on cheap tiling.” She shoved at Minkowski’s shoulder. “C’mon, up. Don’t make me carry you and give myself spinal trauma.”

 

Minkowski slid onto her back, letting her head fall on Lovelace’s thigh. She looked up at her friend, a grin curling around her face, the rum still making her a little muggy, a little brave. “There’s no way you can carry me.”

 

“You remember how I am at least a foot taller than you, yes?” Lovelace talked over Minkowski’s objections to that entirely untrue statement. “I exercised instead of sleeping for a long time in space, Minkowski, I think I know my own strength. And that’s even leaving out the fact that I am literally an alien double with the occasional outburst of weird-ass star powers. I can definitely lift you.”

 

“Prove it.”

 

Lovelace stopped for a moment, eyed Minkowski carefully. Then she broke out into a grin, shaking her head. “This is just a plot so you don’t have to walk to the bedroom, isn’t it?”

 

Minkowski smiled back at her, content exactly where she was. Drunk and perfect and here, here with Lovelace and no one else.

 

“I can’t believe drunk Minkowski is a schemer.”

 

Minkowski snorted. “Didn’t Eiffel tell you the talent show story? You shoulda known this by now.”

 

Lovelace couldn’t seem to stop smiling, and she reached down to stroke a stray piece of hair from Minkowski’s face. Sunlight was coming through the windows in earnest now, giving the two women a clear view of each other for the first time that night. Dark undereye circles and crow’s feet and all, here they were. Minkowski could have stayed here forever.

 

She protested loudly but both incoherently and in vain as Lovelace pushed her head off onto the floor, kneeling in front of her. “Remember that ‘up’ concept I mentioned earlier?”

 

“How are you not as drunk as me?” Minkowski accused. “You were drinking for way longer.”

 

Lovelace tapped the side of her nose and winked. “A lady never reveals her secrets.”

 

“Good thing there’s no ladies here,” Minkowski murmured, and as she got to her knees she swayed forward into Lovelace. Lovelace caught her, Lovelace was always there to catch her, Lovelace was one of her best friends and Minkowski wanted to say all of this but the words caught somewhere in her throat. Lovelace didn’t back out of her space.

 

If anything, she leaned in closer, sliding an arm around Minkowski’s shoulders and another under her knees and lifting her off her feet.

 

Minkowski yelped and clutched at Lovelace’s shoulders. “What the hell!”

 

“You asked for this,” Lovelace laughed.

 

“I didn’t think you could actually do it!”

 

“Well,” Lovelace said, smug as a fox in the henhouse, “guess you’ll just have to stop underestimating me. Now c’mon, pull your legs in a little so I don’t whack them in the hallway. My bedroom has curtains, so we’ll have to catch up on the night’s sleep in there. Unless, of course, you like the sun stabbing you in the eyes as you try to sleep.”

 

“No, bedroom is good,” Minkowski agreed.

 

They tumbled onto the bed at the same time, Lovelace collapsing onto it with Minkowski still in her arms. It was awkward and a little painful and Minkowski couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled this hard.

 

Lovelace dragged herself across the bed, leaning dangerously far off it to shut the dark curtains. The room fell into cool darkness, rendering itself in grayscale shades. Lovelace let herself fall back onto the bed next to Minkowski, asleep within moments.

 

It took Minkowski a little longer to fall asleep. She wasn’t looking at Lovelace the whole time, that would be creepy and weird and they were just close friends, really, and that wasn’t the kind of things close friends did to each other.

 

So she lay on her back and stared at the textured ceiling above, trying to find shapes that told a story less complicated than the one she was in now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you liked it! Sorry this one updates so weirdly, it's all written I'm just forgetful.   
> (also don't follow minkowski and lovelace's example alcohol will not solve problems. especially if they're space nightmare problems.)  
> One last thing—if anyone wants to beta this, hmu on tumblr at wendy-comet or twitter at wendymakespun!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter fuck-I MEAN FIVE. (this chapter is nsfw)

 

It was long into late afternoon by the time they woke up. Minkowski, sleepy and warm and cozy, rolled over into Lovelace before she was even fully awake. They hadn’t ‘rolled into each other during their sleep’ or anything, but dozing and half-awake Minkowski instinctively just wanted to be closer. Lovelace was solid and warm and more than willing to slip an arm around Minkowski and tug her closer still.

“G’morning,” Minkowski murmured, muffled by the way her face was smushed into Lovelace’s shirt.

Lovelace laughed just barely, her breath gentle on Minkowski’s forehead and brushing across her hair. “S’not morning anymore.”

Minkowski didn’t dignify that with a response, just turned a little closer and shoved her face into the crook of Lovelace’s neck and shoulder.

Lovelace hummed a little, and it felt like maybe kissed Minkowski’s hair, but Minkowski couldn’t be certain. The other woman had no reason to do something like that. She didn’t. She couldn’t. Minkowski was struck by the realization that maybe Lovelace would have done this with any one of the four of them, any one of the crew that she could have been caught in a compromising moment with.

Minkowski couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone but Lovelace. Hera and Eiffel were her best friends, but… It wasn’t the same with them. Lovelace tapped her fingers against Minkowski’s back, barely firm enough to be felt. “I c’n hear you thinking. Go back to sleep.”

“We should get up,” Minkowski said, no real force behind her words. Lovelace didn’t say anything, but she kept her arm around Minkowski. Let Minkowski decide for herself whether or not to follow through.

And, well. Minkowski liked to think of herself as someone who followed through. She pulled free from Lovelace, rolling to the other side of the bed and regretting the loss of contact as soon as she was too far away to turn back.

There was light sneaking in around the sides of the curtain, careful and delicate as a fawn learning to walk. Minkowski was sure Lovelace would look damn gorgeous in it.

She didn’t want to turn around and confirm her suspicions. (She did anyway.)

“I’m going to go take a shower,” she said, lacking a better excuse.

The shower in Lovelace’s apartment was tiny, barely enough room to stand without brushing the walls or the door with your hip. Minkowski stripped out of her clothes and hopped in without waiting for the water to warm up. The freezing water hit her like a shotgun, completely waking her much faster than lying in bed with Lovelace would have.

God, Lovelace. At some point in the night before four am she must have changed, tank-top and short shorts and all those lithe muscles on full display as Minkowski had left the bedroom. Lovelace had even kicked off the blanket as she stretched out in her newfound space on the bed. Watching Lovelace stretch like a cat—a panther with her strength and grace and knock-out eyes—it did things to a woman. If Minkowski was single, she’d eat her alive.

Which she wasn’t. 

Technically, neither was Lovelace.

Minkowski shook her head, sending water droplets flinging against the sides of the stall. Technicalities never won a war and she had a husband and Lovelace was her best friend. She couldn’t afford to ruin either of those things.

The water warmed slowly, cascading down her body and letting her blood finally start flowing again. She could see her hands and chest begin to flush, and could feel the blood moving towards other places.

Surely if she just let herself have this one moment, it wouldn’t do any harm. 

The door was locked, Dominik was miles away, Lovelace was still in the bed they’d shared. No one would know except her. Minkowski let one of her hands begin to wander a little low, drawing small circles on her hip.

And she wondered what Lovelace was doing on that bed they’d shared. If, given the privacy, she was doing the same thing Minkowski was. Sliding one hand up, gripping her breast. Allowing the other to draw ever-tightening circles that shifted closer to that spot between her legs. Minkowski thought of Lovelace, stretched out and smirking and without that tank-top or those shorts, and shivered.

This was fine, _this was fine,_ nobody would ever know that she was getting herself off in Lovelace’s shower thinking of Lovelace and hoping Lovelace was thinking of her. 

It even smelled like her in here, with her hair products and deodorant on the shelves in the small bathroom.

Every time Minkowski’s fingers brushed over her clit, her knees went weak and she had a second where Lovelace was standing in front of her, grinning and reaching out to help her stand. What might have happened if she had invited Lovelace into the shower with her? If Lovelace had said yes?

The scene was perfect in her mind, hot water rolling down both of their bodies, Lovelace behind her, holding her close with one hand and circling her clit with the other, both their hips rolling together. When Minkowski came she’d turn, slide to her knees, see how well she could take the self-assured Captain apart. Minkowski would bet good money Lovelace would be loud, and she’d bet even better money that she’d love it.

Minkowski was not loud. She never had been. 

When she came here, in reality, it was braced against the shower wall to keep her footing and two fingers rubbing herself harder than she usually did and Isabel Lovelace’s name on her lips. It was a gasp, a whisper. But it was there.

She kept her hand on herself through the aftershocks till it almost hurt, whining just barely with the force of the feeling.

Fuck.

This was not good.

No one would know but Minkowski, but Minkowski would _know_ and there was no way she could look her husband or Lovelace in the eye knowing what she’d just done. 

She washed her hair and body as fast as possible, wanting to leave this shower before she did something really stupid like start thinking about what might have happened if she hadn’t left to take a shower in the first place.

(It was far too late for that. Her brain wasted no time in creating a scenario where she’d let Lovelace pull her a little farther, pretended it was an accident when she ended up straddling Lovelace’s hips. She would have stopped pretending it was an accident when she leaned down and kissed Lovelace, would have had no defense for sliding her hands up Lovelace’s tank top.)

It was only when she wrapped herself in a towel and clipped her hair up so it wouldn’t sit wet and cold on her neck while she got dressed that she realized she _couldn’t_ get dressed. Minkowski had left her clothes in her suitcase and neglected to grab clean ones before hopping in the shower. 

There was no way she was putting on the clothes she’d slept in and worn yesterday again.

Maybe Lovelace would still be in bed.

Minkowski shivered as she unlocked and opened the door, cold air rushing in immediately.

She crept across the living room floor, eyes laser-focused on her suitcase at the end of the couch.

“Forget something?” Lovelace was teasing, dry-voiced. Minkowski froze and glanced over. Lovelace stood in the kitchen, peeling a mostly-brown banana and raising an eyebrow.

“Just—Sorry, I just. Uh. Forgot my clothes,” Minkowski muttered.

Lovelace shrugged. “Well, don’t let me stop you.” She was still in pajamas herself, curly hair wild around her face and so goddamned beautiful Minkowski wanted to scream.

She turned around before she could say something really embarrassing and half-jogged as best as she could while wrapped in a towel to grab a clean set of clothes.

“Have fun!” Lovelace called after as she disappeared into the bathroom to fully dry off and change. And she was joking, Minkowski _knew_ she had to be joking. But she couldn’t stop herself from thinking of what she had just done and how _fun_ it had been and she was flushed again, from her head to her toes. 

Changing took less time than she thought it would, and it felt like almost no time at all passed until she was back out in the kitchen with Lovelace. Her friend/fake lover tossed her another overripe banana.

“Forgot I had these,” Lovelace explained.

Minkowski thanked her absently, eating the banana without really tasting it. She had to fix this. She shouldn’t have done that this morning, she had to tell Dominik but also she could never, ever tell Dominik.

Dominik.

“I have to call Dominik,” she blurted, and tossed her banana peel at the trash and went to grab her phone without even seeing if she made it in. Her phone was charging in Lovelace’s bedroom, luckily not dead. 

Dominik’s number was in her mind immediately; Minkowski was good at memorizing when she tried. It rang through, ringing for an ominously long period of time. As she waited, Minkowski paced back and forth, almost getting yanked back by the charger every time she reached the end of it. “Dominik?” she asked, the moment the click sounded that the call had been picked up.

“Reneé,” he said, not sounding quite as surprised as Minkowski would have thought. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“I’m sorry,” she said in response. “I meant to call you sooner, I know I promised nightly calls and it’s been two days. It’s just been busy here. There’s a lot to do and I’ve been so tired at night and I know none of this is a real excuse, but it’s all I have. Nik, I’m just. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”

“I know,” Dominik said, and he didn’t sound like he knew the same thing she did. “You want to, I know.”

Minkowski couldn’t stop thinking about that morning in the shower. She had so much to apologize for, far more than forgetting a few phone calls. But every time she opened her mouth to tell him about it, nothing happened.

So she kept talking about other things. They’d hired a lawyer as well as their agent, Eiffel and Hera were doing well, their case against Goddard looked better every day. She didn’t mention Lovelace more than occasionally, in passing. Like Lovelace didn’t matter at all, and beyond leaving out that morning’s adventures that was the biggest lie of omission in this phone call by far.

Dominik was quiet. He answered her questions, he didn’t _sound_ upset, but it had been a long time since their last real fight and Minkowski had forgotten his tells for when he was actually mad at her. 

“Are things okay?” she asked at last, too afraid to get more into specifics.

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Just—” The silence that followed was palpable, the lack of sound through the phone somehow louder than either of their voices. “Remember me, okay?”

“Dominik, I—” Minkowski started, but her phone started beeping as another call came through. Garner’s face appeared on her screen under the incoming call symbol. 

“You have to take that, don’t you,” Dominik said, and it was not a question. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, darling.” And it was only after he had hung up that Minkowski whispered, barely even moving her lips, that she loved him.

It felt like it took an eternity for Minkowski to sit down on the bed and click to answer Garner’s phone call. 

The agent was cheerier than anyone had the right to be, even if it was technically almost four o’clock in the afternoon.

“Hello, Minkowski! Are you and Lovelace busy this evening?”

“I… No, not as far as I know.” Minkowski scrunched the sheets on the bed in her loose hand, fidgeting and uncomfortable.

“Great! So, the DNC is running their annual LGBT Gala tonight, and they want you two to be VIPs! You won’t have to do any speaking, I promise, just show up and look gorgeous—shouldn’t be a problem for the two of you, am I right?” Garner laughed, the sound somehow crisp and clear even through the phone line.

“I’ll have to ask Lovelace,” she hedged.

The woman in question came into the room at that time, heading to her dresser for clothes for that day. “Ask me what?”

Minkowski just put the phone on speaker to let Garner explain.

“So, you two should be seen in public as much as possible in the days before you officially file your summons for Goddard in court. The Democratic National Convention is holding their annual LGBT Gala in New York tonight, and they’re willing to transport you there. Plus, I got in touch with _Zac Posen_ and he wants you two to wear his dresses!” 

Lovelace and Minkowski shared a glance. Yeah, neither of them knew who he was. Garner sounded so excited that neither of them had the heart to say so.

“Are you in?” Garner asked.

“Do we have a choice?” Lovelace snarked.

“Not really.”

“Then... I guess we’re in,” Minkowski said.

Across the line, Minkowski could hear Garner clap once. “Then it’s settled. I’ll send a car to pick you two up, and we’ll start getting ready. The gala is in five hours, and we’ll need every second of that time to get you two ready. Hera and Eiffel aren’t coming, but they send their regards.”

“Really,” Minkowski said. “Either one of those two told you to send us ‘their regards’.”

“Weeeell not in those exact words, but I feel like that sums it up a lot better than trying to remember every pop-culture reference that Eiffel made or the amount of times Hera chimed in with something else.”

“Fair enough.”

“Alright, enough talking, I have to go get stuff set up for your appearance at the gala! The car will be along for you two shortly, and you don’t need to bring anything except your beautiful smiles, a water bottle, and probably your phones are a good idea too. See you at the gala!”

With a click, the line dropped.

“I guess we’re going to a party,” Lovelace said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know if you liked it!! are y'all ready for the party? spoilers: minkowski and lovelace are gorgeous as hell


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's a doozy y'all ready?

The trip to New York felt shorter than it should have, passing in a flash of color and landscapes seen only through small windows. 

It was when they arrived that time lengthened and slowed to almost a standstill. Minkowski had never realized quite how much work went into a celebrity’s appearance at a gala (she guessed that was the closest word to what they would be here) and she never wanted to experience it again. 

There were people constantly running around the makeup studio responsible for their appearances, carrying trays of eyeshadows and blushes and concealer in every shade imaginable. 

“If you get near me with that, it’s going in your face,” Lovelace said, darkly eyeing a young man carrying a jar of hot wax and an applicator. 

“No need to be rude, Captain Lovelace,” he replied, retreating. “And you, Lieutenant-Commander?” 

“Just Minkowski is fine,” Minkowski assured. “And I don’t want the waxing either.” 

He shrugged. “I suppose that is your loss. Our wax jobs are the smoothest in the city, you know.” With that, he took the jar and applicator and left to another part of the studio. After him came more people than Minkowski could really remember. Hair and makeup and more makeup and more hair and color coordinators and nail technicians and more people than Minkowski could name off the top of her head, all with their own job to do to make Minkowski and Lovelace the equal of any celebrity on the red carpet that night. 

They didn’t get to see their dresses until the very end. Each woman was separated into her own dressing room, not that Minkowski had been able to see Lovelace with all the people between them even before being separated. There was an attendant in the room with her, a cheery teenager with a name tag that said “Intern Kelly” and long hair in a bun so tight it looked painful. 

She carried a garment bag almost taller than she was, careful not to let the bottom of it brush the ground. “Can you step out of your clothes, please? We’ve supplied the proper undergarments for this gown, hung in the closet to your left. I’ll turn around until you’re comfortable, and then it’s my responsibility to help you into your gown!” 

If she was honest, Minkowski would prefer that the intern left until she changed, but this wasn’t for her. This was for her crew, for everyone that Goddard had screwed over in the past. So Kelly turned around and Minkowski stripped as fast as she could. It took longer to figure out the undergarments. Minkowski hadn’t worn anything this…  _ supportive _ on her wedding day, let alone any time since then. 

There was what basically looked like a corset, cut low in the back with strips of boning making up the majority of the support. A tight set of nude shorts that hit about mid-thigh compressed her hips and thighs, and the tights that went over them were sheer to the point of non-existence. Minkowski wriggled her way into each piece carefully. 

“You can turn around now,” she said once she was sure nothing was going to pop loose in the immediate future.

“Great!” Kelly spun around, still holding up the dress. She removed the garment bag with expert precision, revealing a shimmering silver gown. It cut straight and low across the front, dropping dangerously in the back to show off Minkowski’s arms and shoulders. The style was nipped in at the waist, a blue strip of satin marking the point at which it would settle with looser, flowing chiffon over Minkowski’s hips. “Lift up your arms, if you will,” Kelly requested, and Minkowski obediently raised her arms up. Kelly settled the dress over her head, careful not smudge her makeup or get any of it on the dress itself. Minkowski couldn’t see what was happening, but she could feel the intern do something at the back of the dress, pulling it in tight till it stayed. 

“Alright, you’re all set!” Kelly chirped. “There are mirrors just outside and they should have your shoes for the evening as well. Thank you for using our services today.” 

Minkowski nodded gratefully and left the dressing room. 

There were several large mirrors outside of the room, but they were not the first things that caught Minkowski’s eyes and held them. 

Lovelace was spinning in front of one of the mirrors, her floor-length skirt a blue so deep it was almost black twirling around her. The dress was topped with a subtly sparkling blue bodice and halter-style sleeves in a dark tulle overlay reminiscent of the top layer on her skirt. She was beautiful. Well, Lovelace was always beautiful. But Minkowski had a weakness for women in formalwear. 

On the final one of Lovelace’s spins, she caught sight of Minkowski and came to a stop. “Hey, Minkowski,” she said, voice soft like velvet. 

“Hey, yourself,” Minkowski murmured. They walked towards each other slowly, and it was only when she felt goosebumps run up her leg that she realized the chiffon layers in her dress split up to mid thigh on her right leg, barely concealing the shorts she wore under the dress. “Tell the truth,” she said, gazing at Lovelace with utmost sincerity. “How itchy are the sleeves on that dress?” 

Lovelace laughed, throwing her head back and pulling Minkowski in for a tight hug. “You’re just jealous you can’t run in that thing without risking flashing a hundred reporters.” 

They kept talking while they picked up their shoes, teasing and both a little flushed and more excited than they were willing to admit for the upcoming night. It would be difficult, to be sure, but Lovelace looked so beautiful and their job was basically to spend the whole evening talking to each other. It couldn’t be that hard, right?

Someone walked in while they were talking, slowly clapping. He was shorter than Lovelace but taller than Minkowski, with his arm around another man, both beaming at the two of them. “Hello, Minkowski, Lovelace, I’m Zac Posen and this is my boyfriend, Chris. You two look gorgeous, I’m so happy for both of you. Do you like your dresses? They aren’t custom designs, I’m afraid, didn’t have near enough time for that.” 

“They’re gorgeous,” MInkowski said honestly. Lovelace left her arm around Minkowski as she turned to face Zac and Chris, casual but affectionate. 

“Yeah, thank you for letting us wear them,” agreed Lovelace.

Zac smiled. “No trouble. I’m always happy to help another couple with fashion, and you two have been through so much in order to be together here on Earth. You deserve whatever dresses you want.” He checked his watch. “Now, I believe you two have a ball to get to?” 

Minkowski swore. “When did we tell Garner we’d be there again?” 

“We didn’t,” Lovelace answered. “I think she sent another car for us?” 

“Is that it, outside?” Chris spoke up, and when they turned to look outside a sleek white limousine idled probably illegally at the curb. “It’s certainly not our car,” he joked. 

“Thank you so much for the dresses,” Minkowski blurted, “but we have to go. C’mon, Lovelace.” She pulled free from the other woman’s arm, grabbing her wrist instead and tugging Lovelace after her through the door and to their car.  

The inside of the limo was spacious, more room than either of them needed. Their driver was in a separate compartment than the two women, leaving no chance to get to know them. Both women were quiet for the beginning of the drive, sitting across from each other in the low-lit space. The journey dragged on, a limousine not exactly suited for New York traffic, and as it stretched out Minkowski and Lovelace both began to fidget in their own ways. Lovelace played with the fabric on her dress, running sections of the tulle through her fingers over and over. Minkowski drummed her fingers on the armrest next to her, noticing after a few seconds that it sounded almost hollow. 

A thin line crossed all around it, and when Minkowski slid her hand to the back she could feel hinges. It opened without need for a key, revealing a cooler packed with ice and glittering champagne. “Champagne doesn’t get you that drunk, right?” she asked Lovelace, who sat up and peered over to see the cooler. 

“Not too much,” Lovelace said decidedly. “And neither of us have to drive anywhere tonight.” 

They made eye contact, the spark in Lovelace’s eyes catching like fire, warming Minkowski more than the alcohol could. “It would be a shame to waste this lovely champagne,” she said, faux-casual, and removed a bottle of it from the cooler. It sat, damp and heavy in her hands. It was a matter of moments to remove the cork with a twist and take a deep swallow. 

When she looked back at Lovelace, the other woman’s eyes were locked on her.

Had she been looking at Minkowski the whole time?

Minkowski wasn’t sure, and so just held out the champagne bottle silently. 

They took it in turns drinking, the lip of the bottle slowly warming to their skin. The limo’s windows were darkened such that no one could see in or out, leaving their sole illumination the ‘mood lighting’ supplied in the cab itself. It glowed warmly from beneath, casting long shadows across their faces. Minkowski couldn’t stop looking at Lovelace. 

Lovelace looked so goddamn ethereal, like she was about to become a part of the stars herself. All the grandeur of the night sky, all the grace of the moon, the arc of a comet along her neck every time she raised the bottle to her lips. 

By the time they were dropped off at the event’s location, both women were just barely buzzed and Minkowski was flushed and fascinated enough by the curve of Lovelace’s lower lip to forget about the amount of reporters that would undoubtedly be waiting for them outside. 

The moment they stepped out of the limo, though, it all came rushing back. There was a literal red carpet stretching from their car’s door to the grand entrance of the gala, and reporters from every trashy gossip magazine on this side of the country lined the velvet ropes on either side. 

Minkowski forgot why the two of them had agreed to come. 

She offered her hand to Lovelace despite that, helping the other woman get out of the car gracefully. (And offering anyone with a camera evidence of their relationship.) They didn’t let go of each other the whole way down, neither daring to say a word in the face of all the flashing lights and shouting journalists.  _ Just keep looking ahead,  _ Minkowski told herself,  _ keep feeling Lovelace’s hand at your side, know that you are here for each other and for Doug and for Hera, and if Goddard couldn’t kill you then these people certainly can’t either _ . 

The hullabaloo subsided once they were inside the event’s doors. 

At least, on the surface. Underneath, the gala was just as roiling as the reporters outdoors. People mingled and laughed, catching up with old friends and making new ones; other people just searching for the best nugget of gossip on the most famous person they could talk to. Lovelace and Minkowski kept to themselves when the opportunity was given, but that opportunity was less than frequent. Far more often they would be wrapped into conversations that they couldn’t afford not to have. Minkowski would be as polite as she knew how, Lovelace would set people at ease with jokes, and they were handed canapé after canapé and poured seemingly never-ending refills of their champagne in long-stemmed glasses. 

Minkowski was maybe flirting a little bit more than she should. 

It wasn’t like she was any good at flirting, anyway. Lovelace probably didn’t even notice. 

They’d just escaped from a particularly dry conversation with a probably high-ranking politician and Minkowski seized the moment and Lovelace’s wrist, setting her glass down on a nearby table and pulling Lovelace towards the dancefloor. Lovelace followed suit, more than willing to allow Minkowski to lead her onto the shining wood floor. 

“Do you have any idea how to dance?” Lovelace murmured, a grin teasing at the edges of her face. There was a blush riding high on her cheeks and she kept sneaking glances at Minkowski and smiling, like she couldn’t believe she got to have this moment. 

Minkowski laughed, and tipped her head forward to rest against Lovelace’s collarbone. She smelled like the champagne they’d been drinking all night, sweet and light and more delicate than Minkowski would have ever imagined her to be. “I can do a damn good jazz square,” she admitted. “I took theater classes all through high school. Probably can still remember my routine from Climbing Over Rocky Mountains, but beyond that, I’m not great.” 

“It’s just swaying,” Lovelace said, and she slid her hands down to Minkowski’s waist and began to step side to side, slow and gentle. Minkowski put her arms around Lovelace’s shoulders, reaching up to make it all the way around. 

“Not even gonna try and tease me for being in musical theatre?” Minkowski pulled away just far enough to look up at Lovelace, grinning. 

Lovelace shook her head. “No, you’re too cute for that, sorry. No teasing allowed tonight.” 

Minkowski was leaning up before she thought about what she was doing, swaying on her tip-toes to match Lovelace’s movements. The air seemed to shimmer around them with soft light and glitter slowly floating in a gentle breeze from the fans at the top of the ballroom. Their lips were centimeters apart. 

Lovelace looked so sad. 

That was what snapped Minkowski out of it, in the end. When they were that close, close enough to feel each other’s breath on their face and the heat of their skin shared between only them, Lovelace didn’t look as happy as she’d been earlier in the party, the teasing smiles and jokes replaced with a look Minkowski would call melancholy if it was on anybody else. She sank back down onto her feet and didn’t rest her head back on Lovelace’s chest. 

She resisted the urge to tug at the neckline of her dress; it felt like the temperature had jumped ten degrees in the last few seconds. The lighting seemed garish, the gossip and whispers gauche.

“Want to check out the garden?” Lovelace asked, voice barely above a whisper. She hadn’t taken her eyes off of Minkowski’s once. 

Minkowski just nodded and allowed Lovelace to lead the two of them off the dancefloor and into the night. 

“If we were at home,” Minkowski began, and Lovelace shushed her gently. She drew her close, faking at an affectionate embrace to whisper into Minkowski’s ear.

“There’s a woman with a press badge on your six,” Lovelace murmured. “Be careful what you say.” 

Minkowski trusted Lovelace enough to not risk their cover by glancing behind her to see the reporter for herself. She just let Lovelace keep holding her hand and leading her further into the hedges. The garden was filled with fragrant flowers, wisteria and honeysuckle hanging thick from every branch. 

The two of them at last stopped under a tree heavy with blossoms, and every time the wind picked up a gust of petals fluttered to the ground. There was a stone bench beneath it, meant for far more illicit rendezvous than theirs. 

But here they were. 

Lovelace sighed and leaned on Minkowski’s shoulder as they sat in silence. 

Around them, the wind sighed in the bushes and treetops. Faintly, cars honked and engines revved as the life of the city pulsed late into the night. Strains of music from the party still made their way out this far as well. Someone was singing about dancing with their hands tied and being the mess that someone else wanted, and Minkowski’s heart pounded in her chest. 

“I wish we were home,” she whispered. 

Lovelace nodded, Minkowski feeling the movement more than seeing it. “Me too.” 

The song went on in the distance, and Minkowski felt like a moment for something dramatic was passing her by as she sat here with Lovelace. 

She couldn’t bring herself to care. She’d give up a thousand moments of intrigue or drama or fantastical romance for this, just to sit outside with Lovelace and know that they both felt the same in this moment. 

Just outside of their wisteria curtain, she caught sight of someone who must have been the reporter from earlier. 

Minkowski nudged Lovelace gently. “That the same woman?”

Lovelace looked up, nodded. When she turned to look at Minkowski, Minkowski was already looking at her. 

They were so close. 

Lovelace still looked so sad. 

But it was colder out here than it was in the ballroom, bringing something more like sobriety into Minkowski’s blood. And she couldn’t stop thinking about the  _ almost  _ kiss in the ballroom, the  _ almost  _ staying in the bedroom, the  _ almosts _ and  _ could haves _ and  _ if onlys _ . 

“Should we give her a show?” Minkowski asked. She sounded more confident than she thought she would have. “All a part of the plan, right?” 

“Yeah,” Lovelace said, slow and uncertain. “All a part of the plan.” 

And Minkowski tipped her head up and Lovelace leaned down and her lips were on Minkowski’s. She tasted like she smelled, sweet and intoxicating as any champagne. God, her lips were so soft. Minkowski disappeared into the moment, this single instant above all others. There was no reporter, no plan, no nothing. Just her and Lovelace under sprays of wisteria as goosebumps ran up her arms and Lovelace wound a hand into her hair to angle her closer. 

Lovelace was so gentle. 

Minkowski had maybe thought about this on the Hephaestus, once or twice. The times when she’d been sure that they’d never make it home and she’d never have to look Dominik in the eye knowing she’d thought what she had. In all her daydreams and fantasies, Lovelace was never this gentle. It was always slamming each other into bulkheads and biting and everything being a contest (which Minkowski was in no way opposed to), but never like this. 

She’d never imagined Lovelace’s mouth hot and gentle on hers. Lovelace pulling her head back so carefully, asking for permission with every movement, to kiss her deeper still. 

It was nothing like she’d thought it would be and Minkowski never wanted it to end. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minkowski's dress (except hers is silver rather than red): [Link!](http://www.dhresource.com/0x0s/f2-albu-g2-M01-68-A8-rBVaG1aPUhWANHmxAAJEpEltyHY885.jpg/2016-zac-posen-red-carpet-celebrity-evening.jpg)   
> Lovelace's dress: [Link!](http://i.pinimg.com/736x/c1/bb/b1/c1bbb13546291ab6f28a97643a97e9d6.jpg)  
> they SMOOCH at last,,,


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning there were pictures of them all over the internet. It was like a scene from a dream, flowers and gorgeous dresses and Lovelace and Minkowski leaning into each other so happy, so genuine. No one would ever guess that either woman was kissing the other for reasons beyond genuine affection. 

Minkowski had dark shadows under her eyes, smudged makeup remnants on the edges of her face, and decidedly not enough sleep to deal with this.

There were articles along with the picture. Some called them star-crossed lovers and some partners and a particularly irritating series of articles by several different gossip mags that were convinced Minkowski and Lovelace were a modern _Romeo and Juliet._

Minkowski sighed, closing her laptop and pushing it to the opposite edge of the counter she leaned on. “I swear, no one in journalism has any idea how Romeo and Juliet actually ends.”

Lovelace didn’t respond, and when Minkowski looked up the other woman was staring, somber, into her coffee mug. “Maybe they do,” she said without looking at Minkowski. “Maybe they really, really do.” 

Minkowski spread both hands flat on the countertop, pressing so hard into it that her knuckles turned white. “No,” she said, gritting her teeth. “No, they _fucking_ do not.” Minkowski was never the one able to lift people’s spirits with a well-timed joke, she didn’t know how to help Lovelace right now. But she was all Lovelace had and she had to be enough; Lovelace deserved someone who was enough. 

At least Minkowski swearing earned a weak grin from Lovelace. “Don’t let them get under your skin, Commander,” she teased, but it wasn’t as bright as her teasing had been in the past.

Minkowski walked over to Lovelace and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to be okay,” she promised. And if there was anything Minkowski still believed in after every level of hell they’d been through, it was that. They would be okay.

Across the room, Minkowski’s phone buzzed itself off the side of the couch and onto the floor.

“It’s probably just another press agent who stalked me until they found my number,” MInkowski sighed.

Lovelace hummed a little and leaned into Minkowski’s hand on her shoulder that somehow turned into an arm around Lovelace’s shoulders, holding her close. “Don’t go get it,” she mumbled. “Stay here with me.”

The phone buzzed again.

 

“I should at least check who it is,” Minkowski insisted, and detangled herself from Lovelace to grab her phone. It was Garner, because apparently she couldn’t call when Minkowski _wasn’t_ in the middle of a conversation with someone else. “It’s Garner, I have to take this.” Minkowski unlocked her phone and sat down on the floor to listen to the agent. Lovelace walked over to her, sliding down to lay with her head in Minkowski’s lap. Minkowski absentmindedly pet Lovelace’s hair as she listened to Garner’s news.  

Garner did not beat around the bush. “So, Minkowski, you need to make an official statement to a magazine—preferably one of the more reputable ones—about your relationship with Lovelace. She’ll have to do one too, but I thought I’d talk to you first because I had a great idea about which magazine you should talk to!” She didn’t give Minkowski a chance to get another word in, continuing on too quickly for interruptions. “I thought, what better way for you to talk to someone you’re already familiar with, and to show that you’re nothing more than just good friends, than by letting Mr. Koudelka interview you for a magazine run by his company!”

She paused then, but Minkowski couldn’t think of a single damn thing to say in response.

Minkowski glanced down at Lovelace, who was shaking her head silently.

“You want Dominik to interview me?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yep!” Garner declared. “I already talked to him, don’t worry, and he is… Well, in the interest of complete transparency with my clients, I wouldn’t call him ‘enthusiastic.’ ‘Willing’ is the word I would use. He understands that it’s for the greater good.”

The greater good, huh. The greater good as kissing Lovelace under a tree heavy with wisteria, the greater good as taking off each other’s makeup at midnight listening to showtunes, the greater good as every moment they’d spent together since Minkowski had left her too-big house with her husband so different from the way he’d used to be.

(He wasn’t that different, and besides, everyone changed all of the time. There wasn’t a static moment in the life of a single human being. Saying Dominik was different was probably the worst excuse she’d come up with yet.)

“It’ll help our case?” Minkowski asked.

“Definitely,” assured Garner. “Is that a yes…?"

“I guess so,” Minkowski acquiesced. “When’s the interview?”

“Oh! I forgot to mention that, didn’t I? It’s a lunch interview today, at about one o’clock. Call me when you’re done so we can go over a game plan! Oh, and can you hand the phone to Lovelace so I can set up an interview with her?”

Minkowski didn’t know what to do. She handed her cellphone to Lovelace, pushing the other woman until she was sitting up. “I have to go get ready,” she whispered. “Garner says she has an interview for you too.”

Lovelace grimaced. “I heard.” Nevertheless, she accepted the phone and probably whatever interview Garner wanted her to make. Minkowski didn’t stay to listen, instead standing and going to get the clothes she needed out of her suitcase.

It was a long bus ride to the cafe address Garner had texted her a few minutes later, awkward and cramped and jolting over every pothole ever made. The cafe turned out to be a local place, specializing in strong organic coffees and homemade tea blends.

Dominik sat just inside, alternating between sipping a drink and typing on his laptop. He smiled when he saw her, but Minkowski recognized the polished press smile and knew it wasn’t like the ones that were for her, his wife, when they had been so happy together.

“Renée,” he said. “May I call you Renée? Sit down, please.”

“Yes, Renée is fine,” Minkowski said, because she couldn’t imagine a world in which Dominik called her anything else. “I’m sorry, was I late?”

“Not at all,” Dominik assured her. “It’s good to see you again, Renée. How’ve you been?”

Minkowski was acutely conscious of how she’d only called him once since she’d moved out and how he must have seen the pictures of her and Lovelace, and hadn’t received a word of explanation from her.

But she couldn’t apologize now, there was no reason Minkowski would apologize to a platonic friend for kissing her girlfriend. Dominik was just another friend, who happened to be a reporter, and Minkowski and Lovelace were so happy together and she was going to convince the world of that.

“I’m good,” Minkowski answered. “Earth is beautiful, I’m happy to be home.”

Dominik nodded, still with that same gentle crafted smile on his face. “Are you and Captain Lovelace doing well?”

“Lovelace is great, we’re… We’re great. The gala last night was great?” Minkowski offered, immediately regretting her words. She shouldn’t have brought the gala up.

“Yes, the gala. You looked very happy. Now, while the gala has been reported on by almost every news outlet in town, what hasn’t been talked about is how you and Lovelace fell in love in the first place?”

Minkowski stilled in her seat, desperately wishing she had a drink to sip to avoid answering this question right now. There was something in Dominik’s face, a crease in his forehead maybe, something like that. It was almost accusatory.

“I apologize,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “That may have been a touch invasive of a question to begin with, but I’m certain that your many fans around the country would love to hear the beginning of a love story so… interesting as yours. If you’re uncomfortable sharing, we can—”

“No,” Minkowski interrupted. “I can share. Just give me a moment.”

Dominik nodded, and took a sip of his drink. Minkowski caught a whiff of black coffee.

How was she going to craft this? What was it Lovelace had said to that very first reporter, the one who’d started all of this? Something about who wouldn’t think of romance with Minkowski around, maybe. Minkowski wasn’t sure. She’d have to make something up.

“Well,” she hedged, trying to buy herself more time to craft the story even as she began telling it. “You know, the stars we could see from the Hephaestus were beautifully romantic.” The words rang false on her lips, more bitter than any coffee. “It was one night on the observation deck—” Minkowski’s time in solitary on said deck was suddenly all that she could think about. How cold it had been. How lonely. “It was just the two of us, you know how that is. All alone under those millions of stars.” Stars so far away, so uncaring.

“It was—” Minkowski was choking up. “We were—” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, and even if she had been able to she wasn’t sure if the words would be able to make it past the lump in her throat. “Sorry,” she whispered, “I’ll be right back.”

Minkowski rushed out before Dominik could get out a word in response. She stood in an alleyway that lead to the back of the cafe, breathing very carefully, each breath measured and precise. _You are not going to cry_ . She was blinking hard and fast, trying to keep her eyes clear. _You are not going to cry._

She stood there for a few moments before a hand on her shoulder startled her into an almost-sob. Minkowski drew in a harsh breath without turning to see who was behind her, scrubbing at her face roughly with one hand.

“I apologize.” It was Dominik. He actually did sound sorry this time. 

Minkowski just let him keep his hand on her shoulder as she tried to get her breathing back under control. _Professional. This is a professional interview, and I am going to stop crying, and is it wrong that I am unspeakably glad that I don’t have to be anything more than professional to Dominik right now?_

They said nothing for a few moments.

Then Dominik squeezed her shoulder once and let go. “I’ll be inside,” he said quietly. “I’ll order you a hot chocolate, and you can come in whenever you’re ready.” 

Minkowski waited outside for a few more minutes, putting herself back together piece by piece.

When she went inside, she was going to be ready to finish this interview. She was going to sip her hot chocolate and smile at Dominik like their fiction was a reality and he had always been a good friend to her. The story Minkowski would tell would be rooted in truth—maybe a bit too rooted, details about slowly gaining someone’s trust and respect and one morning, waking up and seeing someone in a whole new light, all of it tripping off her tongue with ease.

That was fine, though, because she was going to finish this interview and she was not going to cry again. If the story she told felt real enough that Dominik held onto his coffee cup tightly enough to leave slight depressions in the material of it, well. Then people would be more likely to believe her.

The rest of the interview went far more smoothly. Dominik thanked her at the end, ever the polite one. He picked up their tab and smiled at her as he left to go back to the house they’d used to share.

Minkowski wondered how Gilbert and Sullivan were doing there. They’d been fine while she was in space, so they were probably fine now. Minkowski, Dominik’s platonic friend, might not know he owned German Shepherds. She shouldn’t call him back into the store and ask.

She wanted to. 

It was far too late by then, Dominik already getting into his car and pulling out of the parking space. Minkowski left then, not wanting to spend any more time here than she had to. The bus ride home seemed, if possible, even longer and more jolting than the ride to the cafe.

Lovelace wasn’t there when she got home, probably off on whatever interview Garner had set up for her.

… Damn, they probably should have gotten their stories straight about when exactly they’d gotten together before they’d agreed to do separate interviews. Oh well. At least Minkowski had been purposefully vague about dates in her story. Maybe Lovelace’s interview would focus more on current events.

Minkowski had to do something to get her mind off the interview. She went digging through the kitchen cupboards—look, she lived here now, she was allowed to do this—and started looking up recipes that required the smallest amount of food possible. Eventually, she squirrelled up a box of expired muffin mix (boxed mixes didn’t _really_ expire, right?) and a single egg and just enough left in a gallon of milk for what the recipe required. 

Hopefully Lovelace liked blueberry muffins. The motions of baking were soothing, precise measurements and mixing times unaffected by the chaos overtaking Minkowski’s life lately. The door clicked open as Minkowski was putting the muffins in the preheated oven, and Lovelace entered.

“How was your interview?” Minkowski asked.

Lovelace stopped after closing the door behind her, smelling the air. “Are you cooking something?”

“That’s an interesting interview question,” Minkowski said. “I found enough ingredients to make muffins. We should really go grocery shopping soon.”

Lovelace looked at Minkowski, regarding her carefully. “I think you need to punch something.”

Minkowski opened her mouth, about to object. But the prospect of punching something actually did sound kind of cathartic right then. “Wait till the muffins are done,” she said at last. “Then we can go.” 

The muffins ended up being a little dry, but pretty good otherwise. The two of them rode the bus to the closest gym that had punching bags available for use.

Minkowski was ready to start hitting as soon as they’d paid for their guest memberships, but Lovelace guided her into the locker room first. “Anger is great, don’t get me wrong. But I like your hands in working condition.” She held up a roll of elastic handwrap. “Here, let me. I punched my share of people protecting theater nerds like you in high school.”

“Don’t pretend you weren’t just as much of a nerd,” Minkowski teased, but she obediently offered her hands to Lovelace to be wrapped.

Lovelace was careful, precise, her movements exacting. She looped the end of the tape around Minkowski’s thumb, pulling it across the back of her hand to begin the wrap. As she continued, the tape began to put a steady pressure on Minkowski’s hand. Not so much to be dangerous, but enough to compress her bones and steady them. She was pretty sure that was what a boxing wrap was for, anyway.

“How do you still know how to do this?” she asked as Lovelace finished that hand and reached for Minkowski’s other hand.

“I picked it back up again once we came back to Earth,” Lovelace answered without looking up. “Watched a lot of YouTube tutorials until I built up the muscle memory for it. Boxing is very cathartic.”

Her hands were callused where they brushed against Minkowski’s. The two women made eye contact and there was a moment, maybe. It was no wisteria and ballgown moment, far less suited for the eyes of the press all around them. But it was just as magnetizing, and Minkowski wanted to kiss Lovelace here and now just as much as she had wanted to then.

Unfortunately, there were no press in a local gym’s locker room to act as convenient excuses.

The moment passed, and Lovelace finished wrapping Minkowski’s last hand and wrapped her own in a far more perfunctory manner. They picked up a couple pairs of rental gloves from a help desk and headed down to the heavy bag room.

In the end, Lovelace was right. Minkowski had needed to punch something. Something that didn’t hit back, something she could whale on for as long as she wanted until her arms were aching and she wasn’t sure if it was sweat or frustrated tears stinging her eyes.

Across the room, Lovelace was practicing more efficiently than Minkowski. Technique sharp, quick movements, straight punch, left hook, right hook, knee jab, rest. It looked like she had a well-favored routine, and Minkowski wondered how much time Lovelace had spent here before MInkowski had moved in with her.

They gave up on the punching bags after the second time Minkowski staggered away from hers, breathing too hard and almost dizzy with exertion.

Neither of them wanted to go home just yet.

It started with Minkowski throwing a couple of fake punches at Lovelace in the wide space in the middle of the heavy bag room. One, two, duck, and again. Lovelace grinned at her and stripped the rented gloves off, bouncing on her feet in front of Minkowski. “Think you can take me?” she teased.

Minkowski laughed, flush running high on her skin and sweat sticking her clothes to her. She decided to abandon her rented boxing gloves as well, choosing instead to fight solely with the hand wraps and without other paddings.

The two of them would be able to handle each other.

Sparring in real gravity was weird. Minkowski liked to think she’d kept up her training regime after they’d come home, but it was different in zero gravity. Plus, she hadn’t had a true sparring partner since… Probably since the Hephaestus.

Lovelace had practiced much more after the Hephaestus than Minkowski, but she hadn’t had a sparring partner either. It took them a few minutes to relearn the way each other moved, to fall into a hit-dodge-kick rhythm that clicked into place like the last piece of a puzzle.   

It wasn’t frenzied like Minkowski’s intense attacks on the punching bag, but it wasn’t planned, either. This was nothing but the place and the time that they were in.

They fought each other to a standstill, moving until they leaned against each other regardless of sweat or bruises aching to the touch, laughing soundlessly because they were both too out of breath for words. Minkowski unwrapped her own hands, but Lovelace kept _looking_ at her as they walked through the gym, as they sat down on the locker room benches, as they said goodbye to the assistant at the front desk. 

Minkowski was in deep with Lovelace. With all of this.

But specifically Lovelace. Lovelace and the way she grinned, the deep brown of her eyes and the heat of her hand in Minkowski’s. The way she rolled up against Minkowski’s side when they slept in the same place, unafraid that Minkowski would wake from a nightmare throwing punches. The way she’d kissed Minkowski, all gentle heat and careful affection.

Minkowski slipped her hand into Lovelace’s on their way out. 

As they made their way down the sidewalk to the bus stop, a pair of teenage girls stopped them and one of them let go of the other’s hand to shyly hold out a basketball jersey. “I’m, um, training to be a professional basketball player,” the one holding the jersey said, gawky limbs like a colt and thick red hair in a messy bun. She shifted from foot to foot as they talked, barely able to look both of them in the eye. “This is my girlfriend, Rose. And we just saw you guys here and wanted to say, um, when you guys came out… It was really inspiring. That you could be in the public eye so much, and, and still be with each other? Could you maybe sign my jersey?”

The other girl beamed, short floppy dark hair falling in her face as she mirrored her girlfriend’s shifting. “Emmy’s really good,” she piped up. “I come to all her games!”

Minkowski and Lovelace smiled at them, unable _not_ to with the happiness the two girls radiated. “I don’t see why not,” Minkowski said. “Do you have a pen?” 

Emmy nodded and dug around in her pockets until she came up with a Sharpie. Minkowski and Lovelace each signed the jersey before handing it back to Emmy.

“Do you want a picture?” Lovelace asked.

Both girls nodded enthusiastically. They each pulled out their phones. “Can we take a selfie with you?”

“Sure,” Lovelace answered.

Emmy and Rose stood in front of Lovelace, Emmy behind Rose with her arms around her and her chin hooked over Rose’s head. Lovelace imitated her position with Minkowski, arms around her waist and head on top of hers. 

Minkowski _really_ missed being able to use zero gravity to pretend she was as tall as everyone else. 

Rose held out first her phone and then Emmy’s in front of them, taking several shots to make sure one would turn out alright. “Thank you so much!” Rose said, grinning so hard it looked like her face might start hurting.

Emmy was bouncing on her heels a little, clutching her jersey and phone to her and nodding. “Yeah, super thanks!"

The two girls headed back off towards the gym, and Minkowski and Lovelace could hear them giggling and joking with each other until they disappeared into the front doors.

“I used to play basketball,” Lovelace said, almost wistful.

“Bet I could beat you in a scrimmage now,” Minkowski challenged, because apparently she didn’t know how _not_ to do this competitive thing with Lovelace.

Lovelace just laughed. “Minkowski, you’re an incredible woman. But I am a _fucking miraculous_ basketball player. Also…” She didn’t even need to say anything, just held her hand on top of her head and drew it straight out so it was over Minkowski’s emphasizing the differences in their heights.  

“That was uncalled for,” Minkowski retorted. 

Lovelace shrugged. “All’s fair in love and war.”

Minkowski didn’t know what to say that. This wasn’t real love. Or at least this wasn’t real romantic love. She loved Lovelace like a friend. She was married to Dominik.

“Don’t think I won’t take you up on the basketball challenge,” Lovelace said, “but the last bus to my apartment leaves in a maximum of two minutes.”

Minkowski swore and grabbed Lovelace’s hand, ostensibly to pull the other woman along behind her to the bus stop.

Something in her knew it was more than that.

Probably the same something that didn’t let go for the whole bus ride home.

That night, they almost fell asleep on the couch again. They had been watching The Great British Bakeoff—surprisingly addictive—and Minkowski had been yawning into Lovelace’s shoulder and Lovelace’s head leaning on Minkowski’s head, until Lovelace had shaken herself into awareness. “We can’t sleep on this couch again,” she said decisively. “We’re both going to ruin our backs if we keep doing this.” She pulled a sleepy Minkowski up off the couch, guiding her back towards Lovelace’s bedroom.

Lovelace paused just before entering. “Are you—Is this okay?” 

Minkowski hadn’t even said anything, simply turned a little closer in towards Lovelace and pressed her face into Lovelace’s collarbone and yawned again.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Lovelace murmured, and they fell asleep piled on top of each other and were both there for each other when either would wake up from a nightmare of the cold emptiness of space. Despite the nightmares, Minkowski still slept soundly there with Lovelace.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buckle up y'all it's a long one

The next day dawned bright and early in Hera’s processing labs. The entire remaining Hephaestus crew gathered there, along with Garner and Quinn, for a strategy talk. It was not looking like settling out of court would be an option, so they needed to have a foolproof strategy for if (probably when) their case went to trial. 

There were several notebooks scattered on tables, law books stacked on chairs, pencils everywhere from tucked into Quinn’s messy bun to falling out of Garner’s purse every time she went through it for notes on their case. 

“Can we go over what order your testimonies should be in again, please?” Quinn asked, scrawling notes in one of the many notebooks. “I want to be sure we know what we’re doing here.” 

“I start,” Lovelace said. “I came first chronologically. I get to tell them about how my mission didn’t end in a happy homecoming, and my crew didn’t get to walk off a shuttle tired but alive.”

“And if anyone asks about how you survived long enough to reach the Hephaestus?” 

“Tell the truth—there was a malfunction with my shuttle’s onboard navigator and I was in extended cryo for years. It’s a miracle that I’m even alive right now.” 

All technically true. And there was no reason anyone at Goddard would risk revealing their alien secret for a cheap shot at Lovelace, so no one should ask specifically about Lovelace’s state of humanity or  _ in _ humanity.

Quinn nodded. “Good, good.” When she spoke again, it was muffled by the end of the pen she was chewing on. “Who knows if they’re next?”   


Eiffel raised his hand. “Pick me, pick me! So the adoring crowds heard me go all Major Tom to Ground Control, they know my face and my voice. They like me and don’t want me to become food for the fishies at Goddard, but they also already know my story, yeah?” 

Quinn nodded absentmindedly, staring down at her sheet and still chewing on her pen. “Go on.” 

“So my job isn’t to tell the story again, it’s to get things set up for the witnesses who  _ heard _ my story and will tell their stories of how they realized that we were, you know, flesh and blood up there and not a sci-fi B-movie plot. So then they get to speak, and then it’s you, mon Capitaine!” Eiffel made finger guns at Minkowski. 

She missed the gesture completely, too engrossed in the tome of law she was studying intensely. “What are we actually accusing Goddard of? Attempted murder, gross negligence, emotional harm and physical damages?” 

“That about sums it up,” Quinn agreed. “That sound right to you, Abi?” 

Garner nodded. “Yep!” 

After the civilian witnesses, it would be Minkowski’s turn to speak, to set the story up linearly and be ready for Hera, the star of this particular part of the media circus. Artificial intelligences could not lie and most had eidetic memories, and so whatever Hera said both had to be true and had to have actually happened. Except, of course, if their memory banks had been purposefully edited. Which, as it happened, Goddard had  _ super tried to do _ . Goddard’s treatment of Hera and how awful it was to treat a sentient being in this way would be a huge part of getting the jury on their side. 

If this trial went in their favor, it would be a landmark case in AI rights and company policy towards human rights off of Earth. 

If it didn’t, well… No one wanted to talk about that. 

“Can someone remind me what we’re trying to get from them again?” Eiffel asked, peering over Minkowski’s shoulder and wrinkling his nose at the 10 pt. single-spaced type filling the page. “I’ve been paying great attention this whole time, definitely, but like just in case I may have accidentally missed a whole chunk of a conversation. Hypothetically.” 

“Goddard to be liquidated, Hera to be given official US citizenship as a living sentient being, and compensation for physical and emotional damages for all four of you,” Garner listed, ticking off each item on a piece of paper as she spoke. 

(They’d briefly talked about trying to campaign for US citizenship for all sentient AIs in use at that time, but Garner had sucked a breath in between her teeth at the suggestion and made an uncertain sound and even Hera had let it go. A battle for another time.)

Between the six of them, even with lab techs running in and out with piles of cord and metal sheeting and computer chips and pieces of extremely expensive tech, they managed to go over their trial strategy enough times that everyone could remember their testimonies and cues. 

Quinn, at the end of the day, came up with the rough sheet of lined paper covered with crossed out bits and highlighted sections. “Here’s our summons!” she said triumphantly. “This’ll let Goddard know,  _ officially _ , that we aren’t settling out of court. They’ll have to appear on the dates I’ve specified here and prepare their own legal strategy. I can whip us up a much more professional copy and send it to you all before I file it, does that sound good?” 

Garner jumped up out of her seat, running over to hug Quinn enthusiastically. “Thank you so much, Sam! I knew I could count on you.” 

Quinn blushed a little, hugging her friend back with one hand. “Well, thanks for… hiring me.” She cleared her throat and kept speaking. “Now, Abi—er, Garner and I can handle the rest of this letter, thank you all so much for meeting today. If you want to head home, one of us can text you if we need any further details. I know we’ve kept you for a long time.” 

The three of them who didn’t actively live in the lab were happy to head home.

* * *

Minkowski and Lovelace dropped onto the couch as soon as they got in the door, slumping against each other with twin sighs.

“I never want to read anything ever again,” Lovelace sighed.

“That sounds reasonable,” Minkowski agreed. “I suggest we just sleep forever.” 

Lovelace nodded and leaned a little further over onto Minkowski. After a few seconds of silence, someone’s stomach growled loud enough to be heard by both of them. 

“I could read a takeout menu,” Minkowski suggested.

Lovelace hummed in appreciation, pushing Minkowski towards the edge of the couch to encourage her to get up. “Please do.” 

They ordered cheap pizza from the store that promised the fastest delivery time, and curled up on the couch flicking through Netflix together while they waited for said pizza. 

Neither of them wanted to watch something serious after that day, but none of the lighter options stood out either. One or both of them had already seen it, it looked rampantly misogynistic, and so on and so forth. 

The doorbell rang midway into a debate about the relative merits of  _ The Road to El Dorado _ versus  _ Sharknado 2: The Second One!  _ and Lovelace jumped up to pay for their pizza. While she was gone, Minkowski absentmindedly kept scrolling through Netflix’s categories until she found what had to be, objectively, the most ridiculous movie that she and Lovelace were going to watch and remember forever. 

She queued up the film and waited for Lovelace to sit back down with their pizza. Half double-cheese for Lovelace, and half supreme for Minkowski. 

“Did you turn on—”

“No,” Minkowski said before Lovelace could finish. “Just wait.” 

And so maybe Minkowski had started playing  _ Airbud _ . And maybe Lovelace admitted that she’d genuinely enjoyed this movie a lot when she was a kid and maybe they kept watching the (increasingly ridiculous) sequels and maybe the two of them fell asleep on the couch again. 

It didn’t mean anything. 

Then, later, if Minkowski woke up to Lovelace shuddering in her arms, clammy with sweat and nightmares, if the first person Minkowski expected to be there when she woke up was Lovelace and if she pulled Lovelace close and told her that things weren’t okay but they were here, Minkowski was here, and she was going to make it okay if it was the last thing she did… 

If Minkowski did all that, it didn’t mean anything either. Just friends. This was what normal friends did.

_ Is it bad that I could live in her arms for the rest of my life? Is it bad that when I reached out, I was expecting her, not my husband? _

Lovelace woke up the next morning in a mood sharp enough to rival the first time Minkowski had met her. She stalked around the tiny apartment like a tigress caged, until Minkowski got fed up with the pointed sighs and passive-aggressive door slamming and dragged her to the gym again. 

The two of them beat each other up until they were sweat-slick and grinning, and they shared a packet of shitty trail mix from the vending machine and drank at least half of the gym’s closest water dispenser before Lovelace realized it was open court hour. 

She proceeded to destroy Minkowski at several rounds of basketball scrimmage. Lovelace finally begged off any more games when Minkowski suggested that they play for ‘11 out of 20’ wins. 

Lovelace had lost that tight look on her face and the stress was no longer so taut in her muscles, so Minkowski still felt like she’d won. 

They ended up getting off the bus before their stop, at a tiny ice-cream stand just off the side of the road. It was pretty busy for a roadside stand, but it wasn’t too long before the two of them had massive ice cream cones. Lovelace licked her way around a neapolitan, blurring the flavors like the lines between the two of them. 

Minkowski had always been a heathen who bit into her ice cream, and she wasn’t about to stop any time soon. If Lovelace had laughed at her for choosing ‘rum and raisin’ ice cream flavor, she laughed even harder when Minkowski bit the top off of her scoop and ended up with ice cream smeared all over her lips. 

There was ice cream on Lovelace’s nose and she didn’t even seem to notice, too busy beaming like the sun on the first summer day and laughing her ass off at Minkowski. Maybe Minkowski’s heart skipped a beat at that. She didn’t have to admit to it. 

If there were other universes, Minkowski wondered, was there one in which Renée Minkowski leaned in and kissed Isabel Lovelace on the nose because the smudge of strawberry ice cream there was too damn adorable? 

Was there a universe in which Isabel kissed her back? 

If there were such places and times, none of them were here and now. 

Instead, this universe’s Minkowski and Lovelace slowly stopped laughing and made their best efforts to finish their ice cream cones before they melted all over their hands. They still went home with sticky fingers and lips, but they did their best and that was what really counted. 

After washing her hands and lips, Minkowski risked picking up the phone to call Dominik. She felt guilty for—for what, exactly, she wasn’t sure. There were the obvious things—like the whole ‘living with/being in a fake relationship with another person’ thing, the forgetting to call him, all of that. But there was more than that, a more deep-seated ache that made her sit on the concrete steps outside Lovelace’s door for a good fifteen minutes with her cell phone in her hand and Dominik’s contact up on the screen. 

All she had to do was hit the call button.

“Hello,” the voice message began. “You’ve reached Dominik Koudelka. I’m afraid I can’t come to the phone right now—I could be playing with my dogs, taking a shower, or perhaps in a business meeting. Regardless as to which option, please call me back later or leave a message after the beep.” A sharp metallic beep sounded a few moments later, and Minkowski took a deep breath and began to speak. 

“Hey, Nik,” she started. “Sorry I haven’t called. Things have been busy here lately, what with the trial and all. How are you? How are the dogs?” Minkowski paused. How did she sum up their latest meetings and strategies in a single voicemail message? “I miss you,” she said, not solving her problem of what else to say at all. “This whole…  _ thing _ , you know, with Lovelace. It’s confusing lately.” She sighed into the phone, standing and pacing on Lovelace’s front stoop. “That’s the wrong word. You know what I mean, right? You always did. Do. Thinking of you, okay? I love you.” The message shut off with another beep, immortalizing her awkward phrasing on Dominik’s cell phone forever. 

Minkowski did miss him, and she did love him. There was no lie in her words. 

It was just… Minkowski sat back down on the stoop, dropped her head in her hands. 

If Dominik and Lovelace’s positions were reversed, Minkowski would miss Lovelace far more and Minkowski knew it, couldn’t  _ un _ know it. 

She couldn’t lie to herself about her feelings like this. 

Her decidedly non-platonic feelings.

Still, Minkowski had to carry on as if nothing had changed. She could talk to Dominik about this, in person, not in a stilted phone call or hesitant voicemail message. Lovelace never had to know. 

It was hard not to blurt it out immediately when she walked back into the apartment and saw Lovelace sprawled on the floor jotting something down in a notebook. Minkowski had always prided herself on her self control, but Lovelace was chewing on a piece of her hair that had fallen out of her messy bun and had dark circles under her eyes and was one of the most perfect things Minkowski had ever seen on Earth or off of it. 

She couldn’t handle the thought of facing Lovelace right now, not when she knew the depth of her own feelings and the probably just platonic ones on Lovelace’s side. 

“Lovelace,” she called from the front doorstep. “I’m going to go visit Hera, okay?” 

“Hm?” Lovelace looked up at Minkowski and a loose chunk of hair fell in her face. She tossed her head to get it out of her eyes and smiled, distractedly. “Sure, sounds good. Just working on my trial speech notes. I’ll order some more takeout and we can go grocery shopping tomorrow, yeah?” 

Minkowski nodded. “I taped a piece of paper to your fridge and wrote down some basics on it, you can add things if you want.” 

She left before Lovelace answered, because Minkowski was getting a little worried she might start screaming if that moment got any more perfect and domestic and sweet and not real at all. Busses weren’t running to the isolated lab Hera resided in, so Minkowski risked the publicity and overpriced fare of a cab for transportation. 

The taxi driver didn’t try to make conversation with her, to which Minkowski breathed a sigh of a relief. She leaned her head against the window and watched her breath slowly fog the glass. Somewhere along the drive it began to rain, fat drops rolling down the outside of the car leisurely. 

Minkowski paid the cab driver and ran inside, failing to avoid being dampened by the rain. 

It was quiet in the science building. One of the last technicians was doing the closing procedures for the day, and they recognized Minkowski and let her pass. 

“Hello?” she said aloud in the dark room that housed Hera’s current main core. The lights flicked on as she spoke, and Minkowski couldn’t help but jump a little.

Hera’s voice burst out of nearby speakers, already in the middle of a word. “—rry, sorry, Minkowski. It takes a minute to get this system to boot up and I forget that you guys are so jumpy.”

Minkowski shrugged and sat on an uncomfortable plastic chair. She drew her legs up until her feet rested on the edge of the seat and her knees were tucked under her chin, and wrapped her arms around her legs. “It’s fine,” she murmured. 

Hera paused. Hera pausing wasn’t quite like a human pausing—except, maybe it was. When someone with lungs didn’t speak for a moment, they would maybe sigh or gesture or shrug. When Hera paused, the static pops in the background of her vocal tract became more noticeable, almost like breathing. Hera couldn’t gesture, not yet, but there was a single camera in this room that she used and she cocked it to the side, just like a human might tip their head to show confusion or query. She was  _ here _ , just as much as anyone with a physical, organic form would be.

“You okay, Commander?” Hera asked. 

Minkowski didn’t answer for a moment. When she did, her own voice sounded almost strange to her. Too uneven, too organic. “Have you ever wanted something so bad for so long, but then when it happens it feels nothing at all like you imagined?

Hera laughed. “Tell me about it.” 

“Are  _ you _ okay, Hera?” Minkowski asked, leaning forward to make eye-camera contact with Hera’s main camera. 

There was a pause. Hera sighed. “I’m fine.” 

And here was something Minkowski couldn’t stand up and fight. No amount of harpoon guns would do anything for a woman who once was an entire space station and now was a computer core and a camera and single set of speakers, confined to one lab.

“Do you want me to take your camera outside?” Minkowski asked. “There are a lot of stars out tonight.”

She may not have a harpoon gun anymore, but Minkowski knew people. 

“Tha-a-at would be really nice,” Hera said, her voice so small. Minkowski, carefully following Hera’s directions, gathered the necessary receivers, camera, and speakers to take Hera outside with her. 

It was a little cold, but the rain had stopped. Minkowski pulled her limbs in close and listened to Hera talk. 

“I can’t see Wolf 359 with these lenses,” Hera said. “It’s not bright enough to be seen from that far-far away.” The electronics in the camera whirred and chirped as Hera zoomed in and out on various regions of the sky. Minkowski was a good navigator, but even she had to admit that Hera had forgotten more about space than Minkowski ever knew in the first place. 

Or she would, if Hera could forget things. 

“I tried out one of the bodies the scientists designed for me yesterday,” Hera said, dropping the subject of Wolf 359 for now. “It’s the most advanced one yet, but it still can’t really support itself and me. So I just… I just sa-at there. Binocular vision. Hands. I could lift up the arm, just barely.”

_ The arm? Or your arm?  _ Minkowski wanted to ask, but something told her that this was not her moment. 

Hera kept talking, pointing her camera at the sky and Minkowski for a millisecond saw Hera sitting next to her, skin and bone and blood like Hera would never want to be. Still staring up at the stars, remembering the horrors and wonders of being up there. 

“I miss Wolf 359,” Hera admitted. “I miss being me.” 

“Yeah,” Minkowski agreed, because she understood. The Renée Minkowski in space was not the Renée Minkowski here on Earth, but maybe that was just a part of being alive. Changing and changing and constantly looking back to better days that were never that much better. 

Especially when referring to the Hephaestus as ‘better days’.

“And AIs are different now,” Hera continued. “They’re so-o fast, it’s just… I’m trying so hard, but I don’t have the processors to keep up with them now and someti-i-imes I fee-eel like even if I-I was still on the Hephaestus, I still-ill wouldn’t be able to keep up.” Her voice echoed over herself again and again, building in intensity and anxiety until the speakers erupted in a burst of static and Hera went abruptly silent for a moment. 

“Hera?” Minkowski asked. “Hera, are you there?” 

With a shorter burst of crackling sound, like someone coughing or clearing their throat, the speakers came back to life. “Fine, fine. I’m fine.” Hera sighed again. “Sorry about that.”   


“Do you want to go back inside?” 

“Not yet. I-I. I don’t want to talk about it anymore, though.” 

“That’s okay,” Minkowski said, as gentle as she knew how to be. “Want to tell me about the constellations?” 

Hera was silent, considering the option. “What if I tell you about the chemical compositions of the nearby stars? I’m not so great at mythology.” 

Minkowski nodded. “That sounds great, Hera.” 

The two of them sat in the grass and Minkowski closed her eyes and listened to Hera talk. If she concentrated hard enough, she almost felt like she was back on the Hephaestus. In one of the nice moments. Like the week when she’d knocked out Hilbert and Eiffel and it had just been her and Hera, talking about their favorite things about space and not worrying about conspiracies or murders or death. 

But then the grass itched at the back of her neck and gravity pressed on her chest every time she breathed in and Minkowski remembered, she always remembered. 

They would never be on that ship again, and she thanked any higher power listening for that. 

Didn’t mean she didn’t miss it sometimes. 

“We can go inside now, Minkowski,” Hera spoke up. The AI had been quiet for a little while, staring at the stars in silent contemplation. “I’m sorry if you got cold, I forgot that happens here.” 

Minkowski hadn’t noticed the goosebumps prickling along her arms until Hera had mentioned the cold, and a second later a chilly breeze broke through the surrounding hedges and soaked into Minkowski’s bones. She gathered up Hera’s tech, wincing at the cold metal, and brought the AI back inside with her. 

“Minkowski?” Hera asked, almost too quiet to hear, as Minkowski plugged the last of the tech back in to charge. 

“What is it?” 

“How do you know when you love someone?” 

Minkowski’s heart dropped. 

_ You wake up with her before dawn and you want to kiss her even though her morning breath smells like death.  _

_ She takes you to the gym and beats you at basketball until neither of you can remember why you were sad.  _

_ It’s being fooled by an empty gun with a listening device in it, wielded by a captain who should be dead but instead is here, alive and paranoid and so, so beautiful.  _

_ It’s what comes after that, the slow build of trust and companionship and suddenly one day you don’t know how you ever survived without her. _

She didn’t think any of that applied to Hera. 

“It’s…” Minkowski began. “Hera, I…” She kept trailing off, no definition to be found that encompassed the frustration and determination and communication bound together with romantic ideals and nonsensical movies. “It’s trial and error,” she settled on at last. “You ask yourself if you feel something enough times, tell yourself that you don’t, admit that you do. It creeps up on you.” 

“You should talk to Lovelace about that,” Hera suggested.

Minkowski laughed, a little sadder than she’d meant to be. “I know, Hera. I know.” 

She wished she could give Hera a hug. 

In the end, she went with a pat on top of her main camera. “You should talk to Eiffel, Hera. He’s surprisingly okay with feelings for being such a mess with literally everything else.” 

Despite herself, Hera giggled. “He’s not even here to defend himself, Minkowski.”

* * *

When Minkowski got home, Lovelace lay curled on the couch. She was asleep but shivering; in the background the heater made feeble wheezing sounds instead of making heat. There was a blanket tangled around her feet, doing nothing to actually keep her warm. 

Minkowski knelt by her side. “Lovelace,” she murmured. “Isabel.” 

Lovelace blinked once, slow, sleepy. “Renée,” she breathed. “You’re home.” 

In answer, Minkowski nodded. Trusting the exercises she’d done while on the Hephaestus and continued to do here on Earth, she carefully slipped one arm under Lovelace’s knees and the other around her shoulders. It took a few moments to get to her feet without jostling or dropping Lovelace, but Minkowski managed it. 

Lovelace leaned into Minkowski, holding on to Minkowski’s shirt and pressing her face into Minkowski’s shoulder. Her breath was hot, even through the fabric of said shirt. It was a dramatic contrast from the chilly air that took up the rest of the apartment, and goosebumps shivered across Minkowski’s bare skin at the feeling. 

Minkowski carried her to the bedroom that she had begun to think of as theirs. She shouldn’t. It wasn’t going to keep being theirs, was never supposed to be theirs to begin with. 

She couldn’t seem to stop. 

Especially not now, when she laid Lovelace down on the bed and Lovelace didn’t want to let go, too asleep to recognize that it would be more polite to let Minkowski pull away. 

Minkowski couldn’t bring herself to leave the room, even when she did free herself from Lovelace’s sleepy yet surprisingly strong grasp. Not when the moment she pulled away Lovelace curled back into herself, looking so small on a bed too large for one person. She ended up borrowing a pair of Lovelace’s pajamas (she had to cuff the pants several times before she stopped tripping over the hem) to sleep in. Minkowski slid into the bed next to Lovelace as quietly as she could, and when Lovelace gasped a little in her sleep—quiet, half-caught in her throat, desperate—she pulled her close without hesitation. 

Lovelace needed her. And she needed Lovelace, in whatever capacity Lovelace would have her.  _ (Friends _ , Minkowski’s ever-helpful subconscious reminded her,  _ you two are just friends.) _

Minkowski kissed Lovelace’s forehead and pretended not to care about the way Lovelace opened up at her affection, face relaxing into unbroken sleep and limbs unfolding from their tightly held positions. She couldn’t pretend not to care about the way Lovelace pressed back into her, and how it felt like Lovelace’s lips brushed Minkowski’s jawline and then again on her neck.  _ It was probably just an accident. She’s your best friend, remember. Don’t ruin that. _

The next morning dawned early, sending Minkowski burrowing as far under the covers as she could possibly get. Lovelace agreed with Minkowski’s assessment of the morning. The two of them lay there, just on the edge of drowsy, wrapped up in several blankets but mostly in each other. 

There was a faint wheezing sound coming from the main room and a crispness to the air that both implied the heater was still out. This made neither woman more inclined to leave the soft warmth of the bed. 

Minkowski sighed, but before she could start to say anything Lovelace groaned and began to speak. “No, I know that sigh. Minkowski,” and there she rolled over, almost straddling Minkowski, face mere inches from Minkowski’s beneath her. “You think that you’re about to say that we should get out of this bed and live our regular lives, but I think you aren’t going to say that.”    


“And why is that?” Minkowski raised an eyebrow, but under the covers her hands were clammy as she held them very still at her sides. She was afraid that if she  _ didn’t  _ hold them so still, she’d pull Lovelace down into a kiss, friendship or no friendship. Just a little afraid. Definitely.

Lovelace leaned in closer. Her nose brushed Minkowski’s, her eyes half-shut and lashes long and dark and so damn close. “Exhibit A: The heater is broken and this apartment is a frozen hellscape. Exhibit B: Sleeping. Full stop. Exhibit C: Any and all of the things we have to do would require us to change out of pajamas, meaning that we would have to be however temporarily naked in the aforementioned frozen hellscape.” She paused, giving Minkowski a chance to say something. “Do I need to go on?” 

A very loud part of Minkowski wanted her to ask Lovelace to go on about the temporarily naked part of that scenario, and it suggested various ways they could keep each other warm. Minkowski did not do that. Instead, she clutched her hands into fists so tight that her nails would leave crescents in the skin of her palms, and shook her head to rid herself of the fantasy. Then she cleared her throat, ready to begin speaking. 

“Those are very convincing arguments,” Minkowski said in her best deadpan. “Have you considered, however, that if we go grocery shopping, we do not have to change out of pajamas and also can stop eating ramen and microwave popcorn for dinner.” 

“We only had ramen once!” Lovelace protested, but she let Minkowski sit up in bed and pull Lovelace along with her anyway. 

They shuffled out to the main room, taking the comforter from Lovelace’s bed out with them to the couch. Lovelace dropped it and herself there, and proceeded to bundle herself up like a burrito and let Minkowski grab their bus passes and the grocery list off the fridge. 

“Hey,” Minkowski asked as they left the apartment, “are you… alright? You’ve been quiet since we got up.” 

Lovelace huffed a breath through her nose—Minkowski could see it, foggy in the morning air—and shook her head. “I’m just cold,” she said, and Minkowski didn’t want to push her. Instead of letting her hand fall between the two of them, pretending neither of them was going to reach for the other’s hand, Minkowski did something different. 

She put her arm around Lovelace’s side and pulled her close, disregarding the other woman’s height advantage when it came to tucking people in to her side. Lovelace looked up at her, eyes round and head cocked to one side in a silent question.

“Is this.” Minkowski hesitated. “Is this okay? I can let go, you just, you know. Said you were cold.” And Lovelace smiled up at her, a real smile where her eyes crinkled up at the edges and there was half of a dimple indenting her left cheek.

“Thanks, Minkowski,” she said, and it sounded like she meant it. 

There was almost no one on the bus this early in the morning, but Minkowski and Lovelace played up their romance like there was an army of paparazzi watching their every move. They crowded into each other’s space, Lovelace’s hands in Minkowski’s pockets (technically, as the pants belonged to Lovelace, they were still Lovelace’s pockets) and Minkowski’s arms around Lovelace’s waist. 

Minkowski pressed her face against Lovelace’s collar bone. Lovelace smelled of coffee and salt, and Minkowski had to resist the urge to see if she tasted the same. 

One of Lovelace’s hands came out of her pocket, skimming up Minkowski’s back to run through her hair comfortingly.

Somehow Minkowski was going to have to go back to a normal life after this.

Whatever normal was, anyway.

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short one but hopefully a good one. setting up some real big stuff to happen soon...

They still held hands as they entered the grocery store. It was neither early nor late enough for it to be empty, but none of the shoppers seemed to notice a couple of women holding hands. The anonymity felt good. 

The two of them alternated leading each other down various aisles, a basket swapped between them whenever either could think up a good enough excuse to hand it off to the other. Lovelace added easy foods—microwave meals, cheese, a carton of eggs and a loaf of cheap bread. Inexpensive and filling. Minkowski couldn’t help but grab a box of muffin mix that looked similar to the one she’d made recently, but otherwise tried to stick to healthier fare. Cereals, fruits and vegetables, and the like. 

They briefly debated the merits of store-brand sleep medicine versus name-brand, and Minkowski was struck by the urge to sit down on the floor of the store and not stand up again for a very long time. 

This felt natural. 

Wandering through aisles of dried food, making fun of overly fancy kitchen tools and trying to sneak different flavors of ice cream into the basket without the other noticing. 

(Peach Amaretto for Minkowski and chocolate ice cream sandwiches for Lovelace. If they ended up buying both boxes, well. It was worth it.) 

Minkowski wasn’t anxious, she wasn’t in a hurry, she wasn’t desperate for someone to try and understand a feeling she herself was still perplexed by. 

She could just be here, shopping with her best friend, trying to figure out what the difference was between ramen brands. 

Lovelace caught Minkowski smiling soft and gentle at her while she scanned their groceries through the self-checkout machine. “What?” Lovelace asked. “Is there something on my face?” 

Minkowski flushed. “No, nothing. Sorry.” 

There was a second of silence, and then Lovelace smiled back. She stepped closer, leaving the machine behind to pull Minkowski into a hug and bury her face in Minkowski’s hair. Minkowski hugged her back, closing her eyes and trying very hard to not think about kissing her. 

“No need to be sorry, Minkowski,” she assured her, pulling just far enough away to look Minkowski in the eyes. “It’s okay.” 

Minkowski could do nothing but smile helplessly. 

The machine started beeping uncontrollably, apparently unable to be left alone for longer than a few seconds. Minkowski had to wave down an attendant and then they were embroiled in the workings of a local grocery store and its fragile check-out machines and even more fragile schedule process for its employees. 

Minkowski could go the rest of her life without hearing about how the shift distributions meant no one was going to be able to help them with this machine for another hour.

Eventually they got it fixed and were able to check out, leaning heavily on each other as they made their way through the door. 

They almost made it home without further incident. Lovelace was following Minkowski off of the bus when she noticed the first camera a few blocks away, and even then she dismissed it as a bystander who just happened to be taking pictures. 

Until she kept following them, didn’t walk past their apartment to the nearest tourist attraction or get on the next bus and go far, far away from their life together. 

“Minkowski! Lovelace!” the reporter shouted. “Have you heard?”

The two women looked at each other, eyes narrowed and eyebrows lowered.

“About what?” Lovelace asked, and anyone who knew her would recognize that dangerous rumble in the back of her throat. 

This reporter, however, did not know her. She shoved a microphone in Lovelace’s face and smiled a smile that showed more teeth than should logically fit in anyone’s mouth. “Goddard’s official response to your summons! They’ve published it online, it’s everywhere by now!” Her smile, if possible, stretched even wider. “Gracious, I can’t believe I’m going to be the one to break the story! Girls, please. Let me share it with you.” 

Lovelace bared her teeth in something that was definitely  _ not _ a smile. “Believe me, if anything is getting broken around here it’s going to be my fault.” She took Minkowski’s hand, holding so tight that it almost hurt. “Please let Renée and I go home now.” 

The reporter pouted, stepping in front of Lovelace and Minkowski on the sidewalk so that the two of them could not easily get around her. “Come on, just a teensy little interview. You’ll barely know I’m here. Woman to woman, come on.”

“She said please let us go home,” Minkowski snapped. 

“Touchy, touchy,” the reporter said, shaking her head. “How about a kiss for the camera then, loves?” 

“Kiss my ass,” Lovelace growled, and she pulled Minkowski after her onto the grassy roadside median to get around the reporter and into their house. 

Minkowski locked the door securely behind them, drawing the curtains to avoid any further attempts at invading their privacy. There were two more people with notepads and cameras on the sidewalk near their complex, and Minkowski hoped to  _ God _ they were just college students working on a project completely unrelated to the massive court case and star-crossed lovers on the media front right now. 

She highly doubted that. 

Lovelace hopped up to sit on her kitchen counter and dropped her head into her hands. “I probably shouldn’t have been so angry to that reporter,” she sighed. “She’s going to paint me as a menace, I know it.” 

Minkowski stepped between Lovelace’s legs, close enough that Lovelace could not ignore her. “I should have been angrier to her,” she said. She leaned in till their foreheads touched, and Lovelace closed her eyes and sighed.

She put her arms around Minkowski, holding her close. “Thank you.” 

“I’m just telling the truth,” Minkowski whispered, and she could feel Lovelace’s breath on her cheek, Lovelace’s arms warm around her. She would punch a thousand reporters if it would make Lovelace smile, even for a moment. 

That was probably the worst idea Minkowski had ever had. Or, well, the second worst. 

She was acting on the  _ first _ worst idea right now. Minkowski tilted her head to one side, the barest movement enough to touch her lips to Lovelace’s. 

Lovelace’s lips were chapped, but still so warm and so soft against Minkowski’s. There was no press here, no cameras. Just the two of them in Lovelace’s kitchen, the counters cool where Minkowski held onto them and the ever-present wheeze of the failing air circulation. 

And Lovelace. Always, always Lovelace, imperfect but trying so hard, so fierce and unhappy and Minkowski would lose at basketball scrimmage and buy ridiculous ice cream flavors and punch reporters, anything to help Lovelace be happy. She deserved so much more than Minkowski could ever give her. 

Minkowski couldn’t give her anything beyond a mess of paparazzi and scandal, complicated court cases and a crush that Lovelace surely did not reciprocate. 

Even now, Lovelace drew away from their second kiss. 

“Thanks, Minkowski,” she said, and her tone was far too casual for this. Almost forcedly jovial, and Minkowski wanted to shrivel up into a tiny ball of unrequited feelings and roll under the couch, never to be found, as Lovelace continued. “But you know that no one’s gonna get a picture of that, right? It’s not going to help us.” 

“Yeah, of course,” Minkowski blurted. “I, uh, forgot. That I’d closed the blinds. I just want to help our case, you know?” She coughed. “Only the case.” 

God, she sounded like Eiffel trying to keep a secret right now. Which was to say ‘incredibly bad at keeping secrets’. 

Lovelace looked at her for a moment longer, considering the tilt of Minkowski’s chin and the redness of her lips. Minkowski prayed to any deity that was listening that her desperation for Lovelace to kiss her again was not as obvious as she felt it was. 

“We should probably look up that information from Goddard, right?” Minkowski said, for lack of anything else to do.

The document was not difficult to find.

_ Motion to Dismiss HERA i.e. Unit 214 versus Goddard Futuristics _

_ The lawsuit filed within this court does not hold up under legal scrutiny, for a multitude of reasons. The parties involved in this lawsuit, Unit 214, Renée Minkowski, Isabel Lovelace, and Douglas Eiffel, do not have proper cause to bring these charges up against us. We deny all instances of attempted murder, and do not have enough information to either confirm or deny any gross negligence on the part of Goddard Futuristics or the associated accused in the summons filed. No emotional harm or physical damages were purposefully enacted during the course of the Hephaestus mission by Goddard, and as such any allegations of said damages are also denied. There is no evidence for Goddard’s involvement in this mission beyond the funding and supplying of it, and while the deaths that did happen on the space station were tragic, they were not the fault of Goddard Futuristics directly. Furthermore… _

It went on. 

And on, and on. Legal nonsense and carefully worded statements that somehow absolved Goddard of more blame than had ever been assigned to them to begin with. It was near-foolproof, even if all the “evidence” Goddard said was lacking lived and (in some cases) breathed right here on Earth, four astronauts finally come home. 

They had to say something in response. If not to help their case legally, it would be incriminating in the eyes of the media if they were to say nothing. 

“I’m calling Garner,” Minkowski said, eyes still flicking over single-spaced columns of text. Lovelace nodded and handed Minkowski her cell phone from where it had been charging on the kitchen counter. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, oh my god, are you two okay?” The agent’s words spilled out of her like a dam flooded over, nigh incomprehensible. “You heard about the letter, right? I know it looks bad but if you’ll excuse my French they are literally pulling this out of their ass, we have enough evidence to put them in the ground and we can spin this letter in our favor—there’s that one section, you know, the one on inappropriate personal relationships—it’s pretty deep in there but I promise it’s there, and anyway that shit (sorry) is a media goldmine, it just makes the two of you even  _ more _ star-crossed!”

Minkowski was not sure Garner had taken a single breath for the entirety of her speech. “That’s… good,” she settled on responding. “What should we do now?” 

Garner hummed, the sound almost fading into the background noise of the phone call. “It would really help with your image if you and Lovelace were to do an interview as a couple. The pictures of you two kissing at that party were fantastic, you’re amazing actresses. And the separate interviews were great too, but those were really meant more for print media. Audiences love liveshows. How does a slot tonight with Vaughn sound?” 

Minkowski blinked. “Your Nightly Vaughn?” 

Lovelace, leaning in far enough to be able to hear Garner’s side of the phone call, just shrugged at the name. “Remind me who he is again?”

“Sound-effect guy.” 

“Ooooh, that guy. Got it.” 

“Yep!” Garner chirped. “And he’s been trying to get you two on his show since the beginning of this whole affair, so he’s willing to push back tonight’s previous holder of the prime timeslot for an interview with you two, if you’re willing.” 

Minkowski got the feeling it didn’t really matter if they were willing right now. 

“You up for this?” she asked Lovelace, one hand over the end of her phone to muffle their voices. 

Lovelace shrugged again, kept looking at Minkowski with those wine-dark eyes. “Do either of us have a choice?”

Minkowski couldn’t look away, even as she raised the phone to her face and told Garner that the two of them were in. Garner said she’d send a car, they had to start getting right away, the slot was live but they needed to rehearse some pre-planned lines with Vaughn beforehand in case the banter didn’t carry them through naturally. Minkowski barely heard her. 

Her own heartbeat sounded loud in her ears. 

She wanted to press her face into Lovelace’s neck, feel with her lips if Lovelace’s pulse matched her own. 

She couldn’t, though. Wouldn’t. That wouldn’t be fair to Lovelace. 

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

The lights in the studio were so, so bright. 

Minkowski couldn’t see the audience, but they laughed at everything Vaughn said like it was the funniest joke they’d ever heard. Or maybe that was a pre-recorded laugh track? She honestly had no idea. The whole area smelled of hairspray and preservatives, everyone’s expressions frozen in over-exaggerated happiness.

It was all too easy for Minkowski to lean in towards Lovelace on the loveseat they’d been given to share. She tucked her feet up underneath her, snuggled under Lovelace’s arm, pretended like it didn’t make her heart skip a beat when Lovelace kissed the side of her head. 

“So,” Vaughn said. He’d introduced himself and the show to the audience, and the camera zoomed in on his face. “Are we ready for tonight’s special guests? Because let me tell you, I sure am!” An air horn sounded as an emphasis to his words, dissonant and, if you asked Minkowski, entirely nonsensical. “Your Nightly Vaughn is here live, to introduce you to your favorite star-crossed lovers, Renée Minkowski and Isabel Lovelace!” 

The cameras panned over to the two of them and Minkowski squinted into the light, tried to smile and wave and do everything they’d speedily rehearsed over the phone with Garner in the cab on their way to the studio. 

Lovelace squeezed her shoulder.  _ I’m here, you’re okay. We’ll make it through this. _

“Hey there, how’s it been, what’s new?” Vaughn said, leaning in towards the two of them conspiratorially. “Honeymoon stage over yet? Please, give us all the deets.” At the word ‘honeymoon’, a recording of a catcall-like whistle sounded across the stage. Vaughn laughed, slapping his knee. “Oops, that was a little inappropriate. I’ll have to talk to my sound guy.” A sad beep emanated from the speakers. 

“Our honeymoon stage was onboard a ship where everything was actively trying to kill us,” Lovelace said. She sat back a little in her chair, regarding Vaughn with an unimpressed stare. “I think we were both glad when it was over.”

There was something Minkowski should be saying, literally anything to make it seem like the two of them were the happy couple they were supposed to be. But the lights were so bright, bright enough that she could almost hear them. She just nodded, smiled a little and tucked her head further into Lovelace’s shoulder.

“I hear you, I hear you,” Vaughn responded, nodding like he could in any way know how they felt. He leaned in close, bringing with him more of that cloud of hairspray and preservatives that floated around the entire set. “So, we’ve all heard the story of how you two got together—or at least, the vague summaries of it. We’ll definitely have to talk more details on that one later, eh?” Crickets chirped in the second he paused. “But seriously ladies, I think we’re all dying to know what you’ve been up to recently! What’s a day in the life of Renée and Isabel?” 

Minkowski and Lovelace looked at each other, and Lovelace nodded slightly.  _ You go ahead. _ So Minkowski sat up a little, looked more over at Vaughn. She could do this. Lovelace was counting on her. And also part of their case against Goddard. She  _ had _ to do this. 

“It’s been great,” she said, voice cracking a little on great. Laugh track. Or maybe it was real? She cleared her throat and Lovelace squeezed her shoulder. “Really, it’s been more than great. Lo—Isabel and I like to sleep in more, now that we have the opportunity, so we don’t tend to get started on our days very early. It doesn’t help that the beds here are far more comfortable than being strapped into a sleeping bag.”    
Vaughn cracked up, guffawing over the sounds of another cat-call whistle. “Oh, I bet they are!” 

Minkowski frowned, shaking her head. “No, I didn’t mean—Not like that!” 

“Just let him have this one,” Lovelace whispered. “The sooner he’s happy, the sooner we get to leave.” 

Minkowski looked at her and raised her eyebrows. “You know we have a twenty-minute time slot, right? No matter how happy he is, we’re here till the show’s over,” she murmured. 

Across from them, Vaughn finished laughing and turned back to face the two women. “So, your mornings are a little late,” he said sagely. “We’ve all been there, I’m sure.”

And so the interview continued. 

It was going well, all told. Minkowski flirted with Lovelace who flirted outrageously right back, Vaughn played weird sound effects and asked fairly predictable questions. How were the rest of their days, what was their favorite date spot, what was one of their favorite  _ or _ least favorite habits the other had? 

(In order: busy, the gym, and Lovelace said her favorite habit of Minkowski’s was stress-baking and Minkowski’s least favorite habit of Lovelace’s was the way she continually bested Minkowski at basketball.) 

Vaughn chuckled. “We’ll have to organize a scrimmage sometime. Now, feels like we’re all caught up on your current lives, yeah, yeah?” He looked around at the audience that was… probably beyond the stage lights? There was a wave of applause. He looked at Minkowski and for a second, there wasn’t that made-for-TV sparkling grin on his face. There was a little curve of a smirk, dimpling one side of his face. It looked frighteningly real. “As you might be aware, Renée, this isn’t the first time I’ve tried to get in touch with you! The first time I called, though, you weren’t the one answering the phone. And, as it happens…” That smirk was a little wider now, almost Cutter-esque. “Neither was the darling Isabel.” 

Normally, Minkowski was not one to swear. 

_ Fucking shit. Shit, shit, shit, this was not going in a good direction.  _

She did not say any of that, just smiled as sweetly as she could and leaned into Lovelace. “Yes?” 

“It was a man, and, well, I have some friends in the media business.” Vaughn winked at the camera and a tiny  _ ding _ sounded as she did so. “I looked you up, ladies! I couldn’t have me not knowing anything about my guests, after all! That would be downright rude.”    
“Whoever you’re talking about,” Lovelace interrupted, voice smooth as the sea before a storm. “I’m sure he doesn’t want his name on live television. That could possibly be  _ even more rude _ .” She was clutching Minkowski’s shoulder so tight it almost hurt. “And we couldn’t have that, could we?” 

This was entirely the wrong time to be having this thought but  _ damn _ Lovelace was sexy. Minkowski shook her head.  _ Focus _ . “Isabel is right.” She looked Vaughn straight in the eye. “And so were you. You did hear a man, as I was living with a close friend for some time before Isabel and I moved in together.”

“Just a friend?” Vaughn asked, the sickly hint of a smirk creasing the skin at the corners of his eyes. “Because there are some official documents—”    
  
“Just a friend.” Minkowski said firmly. 

The words rang true on her lips, and there was no coming back from this one. 

“He was more, once, but not anymore. Not in a long time, and especially not right now. That may not be true legally, but we’ve been very busy. The paperwork will be filed soon, I promise.” She turned to Lovelace, only a second of eye contact to try and warn the other woman about what she was about to do. It was kind of hard to fit “ _ hey i’m going to kiss you and also i might love you for real but i’ll never say that out loud and i’m definitely going to leave my husband for real and who knows maybe fake propose to you right now i mean what”  _ into a moment’s gaze, though.

Lovelace tipped her head down, at least catching that part of Minkowski’s look. Minkowski kissed her, solid and real and in front of thousands watching live across America. Probably in front of Dominik. 

She stood up, and did not look at Vaughn once while she spoke. “Isabel Lovelace,” she said, clear enough that the camera could hear even though she was mostly turned away. “You know about my past, and you are vital to my present. As long as you want to, I know I want you to be a part of my future.” Minkowski got down on one knee. 

There wasn’t a single sign of objection from Lovelace, not a word, not a gesture, not a glance. Her eyes were so, so dark. 

“I don’t have a ring, I don’t have money, I don’t have anything but myself,” Minkowski continued. “Isabel, will you marry me?” 

And maybe Lovelace was fake-tearing up and maybe Minkowski was really tearing up, but that was okay, she could pretend these were fake tears of happiness. She could pretend she would  _ not  _ rather be anywhere but here, pretend she didn’t want to propose to Lovelace in somewhere that belonged to them and only them, pretend that this was the way her and Lovelace should be happening together. She could pretend. 

Lovelace almost jumped off the couch, pulling Minkowski up on her toes and lifting her into a tight hug. “You owe me several gallons of ice cream,” she whispered, and if her voice was cracking and there was wetness where her face pressed against Minkowski’s neck, well… MInkowski wasn’t going to be the one to mention it. 

They pulled apart for only a moment, both of them beaming like idiots, before Lovelace was leaning down to kiss her deeply. Minkowski’s knees went weak; Lovelace the only thing still keeping her standing. 

A sound of effect of wedding bells played over the audience applauding. The lights remained brighter than seemed possible, but Lovelace pulled Minkowski closer and for a single blissful second there was no one there but them.

Vaughn cleared his throat loudly, drawing their attention back over to him. He was beaming, that fake tv smile back firmly in place. “And with that lovely announcement, I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for today! I expect an invitation to the wedding, sweethearts.” 

“And we’re off!” a producer called from somewhere backstage. 

Minkowski wasn’t sure how they got off of that stage and back out onto the street, only that when they did there was rain pouring down onto the concrete, graying the scenery of the city around them. She didn’t let go of Lovelace’s hand, wasn’t sure that she could. 

“That was pretty stupid,” Lovelace said, quiet and dangerous. 

Minkowski blinked at her. There was rain dripping into her eyes, blurring her vision almost like tears. “I don’t regret it,” she stated. Honesty was the best policy, right? “All for the case, right?” Well… Honesty wasn’t  _ always _ the best policy.

Lovelace nodded, and she looked so goddamn sad Minkowski wanted to scoop her up and take her home, feed her cheap muffins and wrap her in warm blankets. God, Lovelace deserved so much more than this. “All for the case,” Lovelace agreed. Her voice was still quiet, but… It almost sounded defeated and that was so, so much worse than danger.

The two of them walked home, soaked through and shivering but unwilling to get back in that fancy car that drove them to the venue. It was fake like the rest of this, bought and sold by prying eyes who wanted more than Lovelace or Minkowski could give them. 

At home, Lovelace disappeared into her room. Minkowski changed into dry clothes in the bathroom, and sat down on the couch.    
She had three missed calls from Dominik. 

She deleted the notifications, and was about to set her phone down when it rang again. Before ignoring it, the caller ID popped up. It was Garner. 

Minkowski had no energy for her right now. She probably really, really needed to pick up that call. She was just so tired. 

The call switched to voicemail, and after a moment of sitting silently, Minkowski picked up her phone to listen to it. 

“Hey, Minkowski, it’s me! Garner. Your agent. You know that, sorry. Aaaaanyway, so happy to hear about you and Lovelace! You two are so good at this, it’s spooky. This engagement is the best idea yet. You two should go out to dinner tonight, celebrate! Let the world know how happy you are. Congrats, you two! Sam says the court is evaluating the validity of your case right now, she’ll call and let you know when the decision is made. Talk to y’all later! Good night!” 

With a beep, the message finished. 

Dinner sounded… kind of awful. More people to stare, more people who believed this lie that the two of them were living. Minkowski just wanted to stay here, make microwave popcorn and watch more shitty movies and fall asleep curled up around each other on the couch again. The backache would be worth it for one more moment that felt real. 

Lovelace exited her bedroom, also having changed into dry clothing. Her hair was pulled back from her face and the messy bun she’d put it up in was dripping water onto the towel draped around her shoulders. “Garner leave you a message too?” 

“Yeah.” 

“We should probably listen to her.” 

“Yeah.”

“You okay?” 

Minkowski sighed, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “I should be the one asking you that. I proposed without warning you at all, and this isn’t even… I shouldn’t have done that.” 

Lovelace walked over and sat down beside her. She didn’t touch, didn’t lean in close. That somehow felt more forced than any time they’d touched before. “You told me earlier you didn’t regret it.” 

Their eyes met. Minkowski would never get over Lovelace’s eyes, the immense darkness of them, the life and spark and love. “I don’t,” she said out loud, testing the words. They felt true. “I really, really don’t.” She paused. “Should I?” 

Lovelace shook her head, not once looking away from Minkowski. “Not now, not ever.” 

It felt like the two of them leaned in at the same time, meeting in the middle with so much gentleness that Minkowski was almost overwhelmed. This couldn’t be real. She didn’t deserve something, some _ one _ this good. The warmth of Lovelace’s lips against hers, the softness of them… No one deserved someone this good. Least of all her. 

The first one to draw back was Lovelace, the smallest smile on her face and a flush on her cheeks and Minkowski imagined, for a moment, that this was the first kiss they had. Not in front of cameras or to make more people believe a lie, something small and simple and for them and them alone.

“We should really go out to dinner like Garner asked,” Lovelace said, and looking into Lovelace’s eyes the prospect of a public dinner didn’t seem so terrible anymore. 

* * *

 

The only place that still had tables available was a mid-range pasta restaurant. Neither of them felt comfortable taking up anyone else’s spots, even if their newfound near-celebrity status could get them a table somewhere else. They ended up in a private two-person booth, dimly lit by low-hanging lights and just sequestered enough to give them the illusion of privacy. 

Their server was named Alex and he was kind, almost too kind. Still, he was kind enough to pretend that the two of them were any normal newly-engaged couple (or at least he was  _ after  _ he asked for a picture with the two of them). 

Both of them asked for the same type of wine and they made eye contact and giggled and if she was honest, Minkowski felt more than a little drunk already. The breadsticks and salad for their appetizers were delivered at the same time as said wine. Minkowski tried dipping a breadstick in her wine and immediately regretted it, and Lovelace just laughed.

“Your face,” she got out between laughing. “You just—I’ve  _ never _ seen hubris and regret so perfectly expressed.” 

“I’ll show you expressed,” Minkowski threatened, and stole Lovelace’s wine glass when she wasn’t looking to pour part of it over her salad. That was basically dressing, right? It was fine. 

Lovelace nudged her under the table with her foot. “I saw that.” 

Minkowski shook her head, practiced innocent mask upon her face. “Saw what?” 

Lovelace just laughed again, and it was so different from her sadness earlier. Minkowski beamed back at her, knowing her expression was too much, too real, but unable to give a damn about it. “I’ll give you this one,” Lovelace acquiesced. 

“At least you can admit it when you’re defeated,” Minkowski teased. 

“Oh,  _ I _ can admit when I’m defeated, Miss ‘I Know You Beat Me Five Times In A Row But This Time  _ For Sure _ I Will Win’?” 

“You’re taking that out of context.”    
They were both beaming at other like idiots, leaning in and snickering and Lovelace’s pinky finger brushed Minkowski’s on the table. Neither of them noticed when Alex popped back up at their table, notepad in hand.

“So what will the happy couple be having tonight?” 

The two women jumped a little in their seats.

Alex laughed and apologized. “Sorry, I always forget how distracted couples can get.” 

“It’s fine,” Minkowski recovered smoothly. “I will have the baked ziti, and Lovelace?” 

“The alfredo with chicken, please.”

Alex nodded. They finished placing their orders and he disappeared back off the kitchen to fetch their food. 

The moment he was gone, Lovelace leaned back in. “So, Renée,” she murmured. “I’ve got a proposition for you.” 

“Oh, a proposition?” Minkowski breathed, imbuing her words with as much most fake-sounding sensuality as she could. “How forward of you, _ Isabel _ .” 

“I propose that if I can eat my entire bowl of pasta in five minutes, you pay for the meal.” 

Minkowski sputtered laughter, leaning away to catch her breath. “Lovelace, no! That’s the worst idea.” 

Lovelace stapled her fingers together, face completely serious save for the slightest quirk in her lips. Every inch the composed businesswoman, she leaned forward across the table. “The worst? Minkowski, I am hurt. Eiffel has definitely had worse ideas than that.” 

“I will give you that one,” Minkowski agreed. “Still. You’re going to puke.” 

“I will not!”

“If you puke, I’m not paying.” 

Lovelace considered the offer for a second, then nodded. “Fair game. Shake on it?” 

Minkowski extended her hand, and they shook. Two could play at the teasing game, though, and when the handshake was over she didn’t let go. Instead, Minkowski leaned up in her seat, tugging Lovelace a little closer. “Pleasure doing business with you,” she flirted, gazing at Lovelace with half-lidded eyes. She leaned over and risked brushing a kiss across the back of Lovelace’s hand before sitting back down. 

They continued flirting like a pair of teenagers through the rest of the meal—Lovelace gave up on finishing her pasta in the agreed-upon five minutes when Minkowski kept making her laugh so hard she couldn’t keep eating. Every time Lovelace laughed Minkowski’s heart felt like it skipped a beat. By the end of this meal she was going to need to go to the hospital. 

Minkowski knew, she really did, that this was not the private dinner they were pretending it was. Too many people at tables near their booth were too quiet, too many faces kept turning towards them and quickly looking away the moment they were noticed. 

Pretending it was private would have to be enough. 

She was almost snorting wine through her nose with laughter at a joke Lovelace had made, both of their glasses running low for what must have been the… Fifth? Sixth? Minkowski wasn’t sure. The lots of times. 

Lovelace’s face sobered, and she reached across the table to grasp Minkowski’s hand. Her hand was warm and dry and Minkowski did not want her to let go, table manners be damned. 

“Hey,” Lovelace stage-whispered. “You’re my best friend.” 

Minkowski beamed at her, eyes crinkling at the corners and flush running high on her face. “You too,” she blurted. “You’re amazing.” 

Lovelace frowned for a second. “Shhh, this is my moment. My thing. I want to… I want to say something.”

“So say it,” Minkowski prompted. 

“M’trying,” Lovelace grumbled. 

She stood, pulling Minkowski with her. 

“Renée,” she said, quietly enough that only the two of them would be able to hear. “You’re my best friend—shut up, I know I already said that—and you kiss like a fucking dream and you want to sleep in the same bed as me even after I punched you in the face that one night in my sleep. You bake me muffins and go to the gym and are like, stupid perfect.” Lovelace was smiling again, a little drunk and a lot happy and… And getting down on one knee. 

Lovelace had a ring. It wasn’t in a velvet box or anything, just a silver band with a tiny opal set in the center sitting in the palm of her hand. It was gorgeous and perfect and Minkowski had never wanted anything as much as she wanted that ring to be hers for real.

Minkowski wasn’t crying. And if she was, it was not because she was so happy she could hardly breathe. That would be ridiculous. “Isabel,” she got out.    
“I love you,” Lovelace finished. “Marry me?” 

(There was a different ring, golden and inset with small diamonds at regular intervals around it. That ring had been bought by Minkowski and Dominik together in Paris, and she’d worn it for years before leaving it on Earth. She hadn’t wanted to risk losing it in space. Now, even though she was on Earth once again, her ring sat in the top pocket of her suitcase. Unworn for weeks now.)

“I love you too,” Minkowski said and even though Lovelace was acting, Minkowski knew, she  _ knew _ that she herself was not. 

“Is that a yes?” 

Minkowski was grinning before she even started to speak, tears welling up in her eyes even as she shook her head and blinked to try and hide them. “Yes, yes, of course, Isabel. Get up here and kiss me again.” 

Neither of them bothered being gentle this time. Lovelace barely got the ring onto Minkowski’s finger before getting her hands into Minkowski’s hair, tilting her head up to reach Lovelace’s height. It was messy and heated and entirely inappropriate for such a public setting. 

So what? The public wanted to see them happy, they would see them happy. 

Just like they were supposed to.

They pulled apart only far enough to be able to see each other, and Minkowski was struck once more by how gorgeous Lovelace was. Her hair was falling down in pieces around her face and her lips were kiss-reddened and her skin flushed dark. Freckles scattered themselves like stars across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks and Minkowski was gone on this woman, had been for longer than she cared to admit. 

Now that she had admitted it, if only to herself, her brain couldn’t seem to stop reminding her of it at every possible moment. 

“I beat you to proposing,” Minkowski blurted. She had to say something or she’d start telling Lovelace how much she loved her again, and no matter how good of an actress Garner and Lovelace believed Minkowski was, she wouldn’t be able to explain that sappiness away very easily. “I win.” 

Lovelace snorted. “Only because you didn’t wait until you got a ring.” She kissed Minkowski again, cutting off any retort she might have tried to come up with. Her hands slipped down to cup the sides of Minkowski’s face, holding her close.

“Should I, uh, come back?” Alex interjected. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I couldn’t help but hear the proposal.” 

“Sure. ‘Couldn’t help it,’” Lovelace muttered into Minkowski’s ear.

“I wanted to offer you two a complimentary bottle of champagne!” 

“I wish everyone ‘couldn’t help but hear the proposal’ if that comes with free champagne,” Minkowski responded, and broke away from Lovelace to take the bottle. “Thank you,” she said. “Can we get two slices of your double chocolate lava cake to go for dessert, please? And we’ll take the check.”

“Very subtle,” Lovelace said, smirking at Minkowski.

Minkowski just smiled and stepped back into Lovelace’s arms, leaning against her fiancee heavily. She’d been smiling so much for this whole dinner, her face was beginning to hurt. A small price to pay for this warmth between them. 

The check was paid and champagne and cake slipped into a bag and before they knew it, the two of them were at home in their apartment once more. Minkowski set the unopened champagne on the counter, finally sobering up and not sure she wanted to be buzzed anymore right now. She wanted to remember this evening after it all ended. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love this chapter a lot it's ridiculous and also possible one of my favorites ever. let me know your thoughts?


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter more porn. i mean chapter eleven. yes this chapter is deffo nsfw.

Lovelace was soberer now as well, and the moment Minkowski put the cake they’d brought home on the counter she pulled out a fork and started eating her slice with theatrical moans.

“I’m leaving you for this cake,” she said. “I can’t help it.”

Minkowski snagged the fork from Lovelace’s grasp moments before another bite entered her mouth, stealing the chunk of cake for herself. “Oh my god, that is delicious.”

“Hey,” Lovelace protested without much bite behind it.

Minkowski shrugged. “What’s yours is mine, Isabel.” She took another bite of cake, savoring it. “Mmm, I think this is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“I’ll need some evidence for that,” Lovelace informed her, and then Lovelace was stepping into her space, pressing Minkowski back against the counter. Every line of her body was hot against Minkowski’s. Minkowski leaned back onto the countertop, pushing the cake to the side and resting on her elbows.

“Oh, really?” she breathed.

And then Lovelace was kissing her again, tongue and teeth and hot, wet mouth on hers. She bit down on Lovelace’s lower lip and Lovelace _moaned_ and all too soon was pulling away. Lovelace smirked like a fox in a henhouse, and licked her lips, slow and every inch aware of Minkowski’s eyes on her. “Delicious, yes,” she said. “Best thing I’ve ever tasted? I think I’ll have to get more proof. A _lot_ more.”

Minkowski surged up to kiss Lovelace again, thoroughly destroying the already messy bun and revelling in every roll of Lovelace’s body against hers.

Lovelace got her hands under Minkowski’s thighs, lifting her up to set her on the counter. She didn’t stop kissing Minkowski once for the duration, breathing hard, almost panting into Minkowski’s mouth, but never, never stopping.

“Isabel,” Minkowski managed to say. “We should—We shouldn’t—”

Lovelace pressed her forehead against Minkowski’s, looking right into her eyes. “What do you want, Renée? Forget everything. Fuck anyone telling you what you should want, fuck the consequences tomorrow. Just tell me: what do _you_ want, right now?”

Silence.

“You,” Minkowski admitted, the words barely audible, and Lovelace kissed her again. The wet sounds of their lips meeting, the little pants and whines from Lovelace as Minkowski tugged on her hair and tried to pull her impossibly closer; those were the only things Minkowski could hear right now. The only things that mattered.

Lovelace moved back to catch her breath, and Minkowski wasn’t sure what she saw on Minkowski’s face when she did so but she was not complaining. Whatever it was, Lovelace grabbed her hands and pulled her off the counter to start walking towards her bedroom.

Fuck cameras. Fuck paparazzi. Fuck everyone who thought that they had a right to their lives. This moment was theirs, and theirs alone.

The bedroom was dark, barely lit by slivers of light coming through at the sides of the curtains. Lovelace didn’t stop to turn the lights on and neither did Minkowski, both of them tumbling onto the bed in the same moment, the same tangle of limbs and lips.

Lovelace ended up straddling Minkowski’s hips, and in this darkness her eyes looked black and endless like the galaxy that stretched above them. Minkowski could see the strangeness in her, the inhuman gleam in her soul that kept her coming back again and again and again. Lovelace blinked, cocking her head to one side to look down at Minkowski. “Is this…?” She trailed off.

Her voice was hesitant, less confident than Minkowski had ever heard Lovelace before. That took her back to reality, to this moment the two of them shared. Lovelace may be inhuman but she was herself above all. She was real, she was here, and Minkowski loved her more than she could figure out how to say aloud.

In answer to Lovelace’s question, Minkowski reached up to pull her down into a kiss.

She could feel Lovelace smiling against her lips.

Kissing was somehow even better with Lovelace all over her like this, everything heavier and more intense and hotter.

Literally hotter. Minkowski was starting to sweat, Lovelace’s sides beginning to stick to her hands where she’d rucked up her shirt.

Lovelace seemed to have the same feeling, and she sat back onto Minkowski’s hips to wipe her forehead with one hand.

“You a little warm, Lovelace?” Minkowski asked.

Lovelace raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you?”

“I could stand to lose a few layers,” Minkowski agreed. She pushed herself up onto one elbow. With her other hand, she toyed with the hem of Lovelace’s shirt. “So could you.”

“Oh, talk dirty to me,” Lovelace mocked. She was grinning too affectionately to be sarcastic, and punctuated her remark by leaning down to kiss Minkowski on the forehead. “All you had to do was ask.” Lovelace shucked her shirt with remarkable speed, tossing it somewhere across the room. She sat astride Minkowski’s hips clad in nothing but her sports bra above the waist.

“Fuck,” Minkowski said without meaning to. Lovelace’s _fucking abs._ They were a work of art to replace the Mona Lisa and Minkowski was unspeakably jealous.

“Something wrong?”

She shook her head, covering her face with her free hand. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” Under her hand Minkowski knew she was flushing bright red, but she still allowed Lovelace to remove her hand from her face.

Lovelace was probably doing her best not to smirk in that way she did when she won an argument, but she was absolutely failing. “A little overcome, are we?”

Minkowski sighed. “Fuck you.”

“Why didn’t you say so sooner,” Lovelace almost cooed, and cupped Minkowski’s face with one hand to kiss her. Her thumb brushed the side of Minkowski’s cheek, calluses from a lifetime of work catching on the small imperfections marking Minkowski’s skin.

Lovelace bit Minkowski’s lip, almost hard enough to bleed. Minkowski sucked in a breath through her nose and pulled Lovelace closer. Almost unconsciously she rolled her hips up against Lovelace’s. At that it was Lovelace’s turn to breath hard and shiver under Minkowski’s hands, her turn to grind down against Minkowski’s hips and elicit moans from the both of them.

This had to be real.

Lovelace wouldn’t fake this.

She couldn’t. Couldn’t play at the way she slipped her tongue into Minkowski’s mouth. Couldn’t fake the goosebumps on her ribs as Minkowski slid her hands along them. Couldn’t pretend she didn’t whine when Minkowski broke their kiss—and the way she gasped when Minkowski pulled her up to sit astride Minkowski’s chest so Minkowski could get her tongue on those abs was the most real thing MInkowski had ever heard.

Sex wasn’t love, though, wasn’t half of everything Minkowski wanted from Lovelace. And _those_ feelings could be pretended, as the two of them had shown over the past few weeks. Or at least, as Lovelace had shown.

Minkowski might have been pretending for a little while, but her feelings had been all too real for all too long.

Lovelace pulled at Minkowski’s hair and rocked her hips against Minkowski’s chest, forcing Minkowski to abandon that line of thought. Back here and now, Minkowski couldn’t help but wince and shove at Lovelace’s hips. “Watch the boobs,” she warned.

“Sorry, sorry,” Lovelace got out, not sounding particularly sorry.

She sounded _wrecked_ and when Minkowski glanced up at her, she looked it as well. Her bun was destroyed, hair in messy curls all over her shoulders and back. There was sweat on her forehead and chest and she was flushed from her face down to her navel. Around said navel were red hickeys, bruises marking the path of Minkowski’s lips and teeth and tongue.

“Now who’s overcome?” Minkowski teased.

Lovelace shook her head. “I hate you,” she panted. “Please fuck me.” Minkowski started undoing the buttons on Lovelace’s pants. There was a minute or so of fumbling, of Lovelace shifting from knee to knee and trying to get her pants off without getting off of the bed or kicking Minkowski in the face.

Then the minutes were over and Lovelace knelt straddling Minkowski’s chest, naked from the waist down.

Which seemed a little off balance so Minkowski _had_ to reach up and help remove Lovelace’s bra.

Solely for the sake of balance, of course.

Lovelace was beautiful. The scars along her body, the curve of her back, the stretch marks tiger-striped along her thighs, the freckles scattered across her torso, all of it. All of _her_. Minkowski could look at her forever.

They didn’t have forever.

They had tonight.

Minkowski pulled Lovelace up by her hips until she straddled Minkowski’s face, and waited for Lovelace to get the memo.

She did so extremely quickly. Lovelace had always been quick on the uptake.

Lovelace was also quick to be taken apart. Minkowski’s mouth between her legs, on her clit, sucking hickeys on the delicate skin there, it was… It was a hell of a lot. She was shaking, gasping, and when Minkowski slipped two fingers into her and pressed her tongue hard against her clit, she fell apart like a moon pulled to pieces by gravity itself. Unstoppable, irreversible change.

Minkowski’s face was wet and her mouth was filled with a salt and metal tang, and when Lovelace leaned down to kiss her she knew that Lovelace would taste herself on Minkowski’s lips.

She didn’t seem to mind, kissing Minkowski thoroughly, deeply, like she’d never be able to kiss her again.

Before Minkowski knew it she was leaning back against the wall at the head of the bed. Lovelace was sucking bruises under her jaw, all too visible and Minkowski knew she had to be doing this for the proof it would give their relationship but she couldn’t give a damn. All she cared about was here, was the woman with her mouth on Minkowski’s neck and hands undoing Minkowski’s pants.

Minkowski yelped a little when Lovelace slipped her hands into Minkowski’s pants, past her underwear. “Your hands are freezing!”

“Want me to warm them up?” Lovelace offered, moving to pull them out.

Minkowski grabbed Lovelace’s wrists. “Don’t you dare.”

“Thought so.”

Lovelace’s fingers warmed up soon enough, and it wasn’t long before she had Minkowski grinding against her fingers, rolling her hips futilely trying to get Lovelace’s hands more on her than they already were. Lovelace was whispering things into Minkowski’s ear that she couldn’t quite hear, words desperate and lovelorn and unable to be spoken in any moment besides this one. Minkowski wanted to pause, wanted to listen and understand and reciprocate, but it was far too late for that.

She came with Lovelace’s hands on her, inside and out; Lovelace’s mouth on her neck, biting and kissing and messy as hell. Minkowski was quiet at her peak, just gasping and falling still, letting Lovelace work her through the intensity of it.

“You still doing okay?” Lovelace murmured when at last Minkowski came back to herself.

“Perfect,” Minkowski breathed.

“Can we use your shirt to clean ourselves up?” Lovelace wrinkled her nose. “Don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to get up right now.”

Minkowski just nodded, stripping out of her shirt without thinking. Lovelace cleaned the two of them up and did what she could for the sheets on the bed itself. They could put a laundry load in tomorrow, one night sleeping on it would be fine. Minkowski took off her thoroughly dirtied clothes and laid back down without bothering to find any pajamas. Lovelace was right, getting up was far too difficult.

She yawned, closing her eyes and stretching slow and careful.

When she opened her eyes again, Lovelace was gazing at her. “Renée,” she said. “Has anyone ever told you how gorgeous you are?”

Minkowski flushed. Lovelace was more kind than she needed to be, especially when none of this meant what Minkowski wanted it to. The kindness was dangerous; it made Minkowski want to do dumb things like believe in their own lie.

She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Whatever her feelings were, Lovelace just thought of her as a friend.

With benefits.

Amazingly sexy benefits.

“Lovelace, we’re still friends, right? No matter what?” Minkowski asked when Lovelace lay beside her in the bed. Neither of them touched the other. The distance was awkward, clunky in comparison to the rhythm they’d shared so recently.

There was silence between them.

“Yeah,” Lovelace said at last. “Friends. No matter what.”

And she didn’t roll over, didn’t take Minkowski into her arms like she could have in another universe where they could be together the way Minkowski wanted. But she reached out and took Minkowski’s hand.

The two women lay naked under cool sheets, their only point of contact their hands clasped between them. Sleep would come sooner or later for both of them, but for now they remained lying silent and still.

Friends, no matter what.

Minkowski wasn’t sure why Lovelace’s reassurance of that made her want to smile and cry at the same time. No matter what feelings they held for each other or didn’t hold, they would stay friends. That would be enough, even if she told Lovelace and was rejected. Friends with or without benefits, as long as Minkowski got to stay friends and confidants and work-out buddies with Lovelace, she could be happy.

Tomorrow. She’d tell her tomorrow.

Rejection or otherwise, they would still be friends.

* * *

 

Minkowski woke up cold and to the sound of her phone buzzing itself off the table behind her. Lovelace lay on the other side of the bed, burritoed in literally all of the blankets and sheets on the bed. Minkowski turned her phone to silent—Dominik was calling again, she’d pick up in a second, it would be fine. She just didn’t want to wake up Lovelace.

She leaned over, pressed a kiss on Lovelace’s forehead.

There was a spare blanket in Lovelace’s closet. It smelled of dust but was soft to the touch and Minkowski really didn’t feel like clothes at the moment. She picked up her phone off the nightstand and unlocked it to answer as she quietly left the bedroom.

“Hey, Nik,” she answered. “Or. Would you prefer Dominik?”

“That would be nice,” Dominik said. He sounded so professional. So goddamned professional and Minkowski kind of wanted him to scream at her, to shout and tell her everything she was doing was wrong and she should stop this pretense right now. But Dominik, darling, darling, Dominik… She could hear the strain in his voice, the effort it took to keep himself under control. She didn’t know how to tell him to let go. His politeness was not necessary, not now.

“You heard the talk show,” she said, when he didn’t offer up any further conversation.

“I did,” Dominik responded.

There was more silence, heavy and cloying.

He sighed into the phone, the crackle almost too loud in comparison with the previous quiet. “Renée, I would like my ring back. I know we picked it out together, but I did buy it and…” He took a deep breath. “I would also like to file divorce papers. You…” Dominik kept pausing to breathe, trying to keep control. “We…”

“Just say it,” Minkowski interrupted. “Whatever you’re dancing around, Dominik, just say it.”

“Fuck you,” he said, without warning. Venom under the surface sprang out, coloring every word with a hissed anger. “You left me and you _promised_ to come back, Renée, you promised me and I did not think you were the kind of person to break your promises.”

She’d forgotten this about him. Even when he did explode, Dominik was never the shouting type.

“You lied to me about this issue and about your feelings for Lovelace and, and, at this point I’m not sure what else. You were gone for so long Renée, and I waited for you. I waited for you just to have you leave me again.”

Dominik was breathing hard, a hitch in his voice like something close to a quiet sob. “Well? _Say_ something!”

“You’re right,” Minkowski admitted.

What else could she do?

She’d lied to her husband and to Lovelace and herself.

In addition to lying to the whole world.

Dominik had waited for her for all those years, and even though nothing had happened in space it was almost worse like this. She’d come home to him and let him get used to her presence and then left. Again.

The worst part was that given another chance, Minkowski would make the same choices.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“That doesn’t make it right.” Dominik didn’t sound so venomous. He just sounded sad.

“I know.”

He hung up on her.

She sat there on the couch. The blanket wrapped around her was comforting, but it was nothing like having Lovelace beside her. In bed or on the kitchen floor or eating terrible takeout straight from the carton, she’d do anything to have Lovelace with her whenever she could.

That was probably unhealthy.

It wasn’t like she wasn’t fucked up enough from that space bullshit.

There were tears in her eyes that she hadn’t noticed until just now. Alone on Lovelace’s couch, Minkowski let the tears spill over. She let herself cry, let herself sob like she had needed to for months. Minkowski hadn’t cried like this in years, gasping breaths and tears rolling down her face.

So much would never be the same.

She cried for the little girl, practicing for so long to lose her accent and the young woman she would become, applying to NASA time and time again and rejected every time.

She cried for the happy couple on their wedding night, each unknowing of the distance that would grow between them.

She cried for the years she’d spent on the Hephaestus and the real turkey and the toothpaste and the plant monster and Lovelace and Eiffel and Hera and even Hilbert and Alana, everyone who’d been with them and been hurt or killed or left behind.

She cried for herself.

Minkowski cried until her eyes stung and she could hardly breath, clutching the blanket around herself like armor. Dominik was never going to love her in the same way, and even though she knew this was her fault and that she didn’t love him in that way either, it still hurt.

She still missed him.

Or at least, the version of him she’d married in that small ceremony so long ago.

This was for the best.

Minkowski was still sniffling and red-eyed on the couch when Lovelace stumbled out of their bedroom, clad only in a sports bra and pajama shorts.

She stopped dead in the hallway at the sight of Minkowski and frowned. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“It’s nothing,” Minkowski said, rubbing at her nose with one hand. “Just. Emotions.”

Lovelace crossed her arms. “It’s nothing and I’m the queen of England. Spill.”

Minkowski pulled the blanket a little closer and shook her head. “I told you, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

“Let me tell you a secret,” Lovelace said, mock-conspiratorially. “When I have sex with someone and wake up alone and find them crying on the couch, I might just worry.” She walked over, hesitant to sit down beside Minkowski.

Minkowski sighed. “I know you’re trying to joke, but I am not in the mood. Sorry.”

Lovelace knelt in front of her, set one hand on her knee. “Minkowski, you don’t need to be sorry. It’s okay, I just want to know what’s wrong.”

“Nothing!” Minkowski insisted, pulling her leg out of Lovelace’s grasp. “Seriously, Lovelace, leave it.”

Lovelace pulled back, hurt on her face and in her eyes. “Jesus, Minkowski, I’m sorry that I have a right to be worried! We’re in this together.”

“ _We_ aren’t both getting divorced from my husband because of a stupid lie that snowballed into,” Minkowski waved her hands, forgetting to hold the blanket up and honestly not caring, “whatever the hell this has become! _We_ didn’t have to listen to him tell us everything we did wrong and not have a single thing to say in defence because he was right, everything he said was right.” She didn’t have the energy to cry anymore, but her eyes burned and there was a lump in her throat making it difficult to keep talking. “We’re in this together, maybe. But we aren’t in the same place,” she finished, “and you don’t know how I feel.”

“‘Whatever the hell this has become’?” Lovelace asked, anger rising in her voice. “What does that mean? We’re friends.”

“Friends don’t sit on friends’ faces,” Minkowski retorted, meaner than she’d meant to be.

Lovelace scoffed. “Like you’re one to talk, there are hickeys all up and down your neck that say you had just as much _fun_ as I did.”

“Oh, fuck you!” Minkowski spat.

“Whatever,” Lovelace muttered. “I’m too tired for this bullshit. I’m going to the gym.”

She didn’t invite Minkowski to come with her, and Minkowski didn’t invite herself.

They just needed time to cool down. She’d apologize to Lovelace later, everything would be fine. They would be fine. Friends. The court would agree their right to trial and then Goddard would be convicted and at last everyone would live happily ever after.

Definitely.

Minkowski couldn’t _not_ believe that.

Lovelace didn’t return until later that day, sweaty and worn out. She nodded to Minkowski when she came in the door, who’d spent most of that day organizing and reorganizing the details of her testimony at the trial. That, at least, she could be sure to get right.

“Gym good?” Minkowski asked, and Lovelace grunted an affirmative.

Still not great.

But better. Things would get better.

Lovelace’s phone rang from her pocket, and she looked at the caller ID and sighed. “It’s our lawyer.”

She answered it and put it on speaker, allowing Minkowski to hear whether or not this trial would even happen.

This was it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> any thoughts? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	12. Chapter 12

Their trial date was set.

It was just a few weeks away and the days preceding it ran in fast-forward, hours ticking by filled with things to do and people to talk to and appearances to make.

Minkowski didn’t confess her feelings to Lovelace.

They were amiable again; neither of them could stay that mad at each other for long anymore. Between the two of them and Hera and Eiffel, the four remaining members of the Hephaestus crew were all each other had.

But Lovelace and Minkowski never brought up Dominik, or the new ring Minkowski wore, or how they both knew the way the other sounded panting with arousal.

It was easier this way. Safer.

Minkowski slept on the couch now.

Lovelace didn’t say a word about it.

This habit of not talking about things was dangerously easy to continue doing. And with all of the hullabaloo from the upcoming trial, neither woman had much time to reflect on any of it. Minkowski sat cross-legged on the floor in Hera’s labs, leaning back against the floor cabinets calling witnesses and organizing her testimony into perfect bullet points. Lovelace sat on the counters, running herself and Eiffel through their testimonies and tossing potato chips at Eiffel when he got distracted.

There were a lot of potato chips on the floor.

Hera herself was all around them, and every now and then when Minkowski got too into her work, into the routine of it… It was cold in the lab, hard metal against her back and concrete under her legs. The sounds of Lovelace and Eiffel bickering and Hera making sarcastic comments in the background were all too familiar, and in times like it those it was only the weight of gravity pressing Minkowski down into the earth that kept her from slipping back onto the Hephaestus in her mind.

It was a Monday, Minkowski was pretty certain, when a scientist with a cloud of hair and a wrinkled lab coat rushed into the lab carrying armfuls of thick electrical cord. “Y’all!” she announced. “I think we got a body running, everybody needs to see this!” Hera had been offline all morning, the technicians judging the possible strain of the system switch too dangerous to risk her running any other programs.

Abandoning all of their work, the three humans—well, two humans and one mostly-human—followed the scientist out of the laboratory.

“So, this is our first prototype,” the scientist was saying as they walked down the hallways. “It’s still a real delicate operation, and the tech in the body eats up way too much power to sustain itself for very long. S’why I’m carrying these around!” She hefted the cords in her arms. “We needed more.”

The room in which Hera’s prototype lay was packed with scientists, technicians, and curious interns. The air conditioning was running at full blast to keep the room cool with all of the people in it, a constant hum in the background.

Eiffel was the first one of the three to make it in, and he stopped almost in the doorway. “Can we… go in?”

The scientist, standing just inside, handed off her cords to a nearby intern. “Yeah, come on, y’all!”

They made their way in; the crowd seemed to part easily before them. All of the people in this room knew who the Hephaestus crew was.

A construct was cradled in metal framework and colorful cords, lying at just about waist-height for the average person. It was blue chrome and metal, simple joints and an almost featureless body. There were no visible speakers or microphones—Minkowski wasn’t sure if this was too early of a prototype to have them installed or if the tech was simply hidden under the metallic plating somewhere. There were two circles on the face of the form, almost like eyes. They were dark for now, as unliving as the rest of this creation. It wasn’t Hera, not yet.

“Ben, get the ends of these cords plugged in quick now!” The scientist who had led them here was jogging around the room, checking and rechecking that everything was in perfect condition.

“I got it, Rose,” the intern called back.

It seemed like it took hours for the last few things to be set up.

Eiffel didn’t move from what was going to be Hera’s side, and Minkowski could just about hear him murmuring words under his breath to her. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she wasn’t there yet, that Hera herself was still offline and there was no way she could hear him. Sometimes you just needed to talk to someone.

Minkowski leaned in towards Lovelace a little without thinking, catching herself just before she made contact. She didn’t get that; it wasn’t hers. Not for real.

It was almost anticlimactic. There were a few wires to be untangled from each other, a couple buttons to be pressed.

And then the lights in Hera’s eyes came on, stuttering on and off almost like someone blinking as they slowly woke up. She shook her head slowly, testing the cords feeding into the back of her skull.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Eiffel said, and his voice was cracking and there were tears in his eyes and when Hera turned to look at him they were rolling down his face.

“Hello yourself,” Hera said from invisible speakers, and it was her, she was there, she was _real_. Hera swung her legs out of the solid framework that had been supporting her, testing the weight of herself for the first time. “Am I—? How far can I walk?”

Rose coughed, leaning across her table with a sheaf of papers. “You’re basically confined to a three-foot radius right now, and please be extremely careful about the wires around the back of your neck and spine. They’re real fragile.”

Hera nodded, and she may not have had a mouth to express her feelings but Minkowski could still see the joy on in her eyes, bright and golden and electric, at the sheer simplicity of the motion that she could now make.

“Hera, can I, um...” Eiffel trailed off.

“Eiffel, if you don’t hug me in the next five seconds I will never forgive you,” Hera said solemnly, and then Eiffel was up onto his feet and almost knocking Hera back with the force of his embrace. It was a blur after that, Minkowski and Lovelace unable to stop themselves from joining the hug and everyone maybe tearing up a little and after they all let go Hera kept laughing, kept holding her hands in front of her face and just looking at them.

She couldn’t stay in that body for long, though, there was still a lot of work to be done with it. The scientists carefully guided her back into the cradle, disconnected her servers and the eyes of Hera’s new form went dark.

“Thanks for bein’ here,” Rose said, practically beaming. “We made history, y’all. Hera’s gonna be the first real autonomous being like herself, you know? She’s gonna be special.”

Eiffel laughed, the sound more than a little choked up. “Hera’s been special for a long damn time,” he said. “On Earth before we left and on the Hephaestus and here and just. All the time.”

Lovelace and Minkowski nodded in agreement.

People were slipping out of the room now that the main event of the day had passed, returning to personal labs or offices or desks or wherever they’d come from. There were no press among them, no cameras or recording devices. This was by no means a private event—like Rose had said, they were making robotics history—but it wasn’t a media circus, either.

Someone knocked on the door frame and Minkowski turned to see. It was Quinn, her short-cropped hair sticking up in wild directions and dark circles under her eyes speaking to the amount of sleep she’d gotten lately (or the lack thereof). “How are your rehearsals going? Sorry I missed Hera, I had another client I had to meet with this morning, and then Abi wanted to go out for breakfast and time got away from me.” She smiled at Lovelace and Minkowski, for once almost soft. “You two know how it is.” She coughed and blushed, looking down. “Or, I mean. I don’t want to presume anything on Abi’s side. Or, um. Garner, sorry.”

Quinn looked back up at all of them, straightening her blazer and running her hand through her hair in a futile effort to flatten it. “So, trial. Testimonies.”

Minkowski was the one to step forward and volunteer their rehearsal summary so far. Things were feeling fairly solid by now, evidence stacking up as proof of Goddard’s misdemeanors and murder attempts, the testimony of the four of them a difficult thing to beat.

Or at least that’s what they all hoped.

Quinn nodded, making notes on her phone as she listened to Minkowski speak and occasionally holding up a hand to tell Minkowski to pause for a moment so she could catch up or ask a question about further details of scenes.

They got this. They were going to make it through this; they were going to raze Goddard to the ground. Minkowski couldn’t stop herself from grinning as she went through the last of their notes, for once confident that things were going to go as planned. This was happening, finally, and she could barely believe it.

* * *

 

Things were great on that front, at least. Politically and in the eyes of the media, the four of them were the golden children.

At home, though, in the privacy of her and Lovelace’s apartment...

Minkowski wasn’t even sure what exactly was wrong, let alone how to fix it.

She loved Lovelace, like a friend and a lover and whatever way Lovelace would have her. There was no doubt about that. Lovelace’s feelings for her were murkier, and Minkowski couldn’t help but hope... But also had no reason for that hope. Sex or no sex, Minkowski wasn’t sure how to bring up any of the thoughts on her mind about their relationship and the benefits thereof to Lovelace.

There was no guarantee she felt any of the things Minkowski did.

And now they weren’t fighting, but Minkowski still didn’t want to risk bringing back up the tensions from the morning she’d been going to confess to Lovelace.

After the trial. She’d tell her then, once they’d finally beaten Goddard.

Minkowski didn’t let herself think about how easy it would be to let Lovelace slip away from her after the trial was over. To move back out, to live alone and never fall asleep in Lovelace’s arms again.

Not like that was happening currently either.

She missed it more than she wanted to admit.

The longing struck Minkowski in the quietest moments.

It would be midnight, the two of them leaning over last-minute paperwork and smudging the coffee rings on the table with their elbows. Half-empty mugs sat next to each of them and Lovelace would start humming some song that had come out while they were in prison and if Minkowski didn’t say anything, she’d start singing. _My ghost, where’d you go? I can’t find you in the body sleeping next to me._ Minkowski would blink furiously and stare down at her documents, refusing to cry.

Or they would be getting ready in the mornings and Lovelace would grump about the sunlight too bright through the living room window but stretch in its light regardless, languid like a panther. And of course she still slept in tank tops or sports bras no matter how cold it was outside. The muscles shifted under her skin as she stretched, powerful even at rest.

Every time Lovelace looked at her, every time Lovelace smiled, every time she dropped something and swore at gravity, in each of these times Minkowski found herself falling even harder.

She was in trouble and wasn’t sure she wanted to be out of it.

The night before the trial, Minkowski had to face the fact that there was no more preparation she could do. She’d memorized her testimony down to the exact places she would stop to breathe and gone over every piece of evidence both for and against them that the jury could possibly bring up. There were no other jobs for her.

She resorted to pacing the length of the apartment, rehearsing her speech under her breath until Lovelace threw a pillow from the couch at her. Minkowski caught it almost on instinct, a few years in Space Hell leaving her with good reflexes to stop things from flying at her head, if nothing else. (The number of wrenches that had almost given her a concussion was not something she wanted to think about.)

“Minkowski,” Lovelace snapped. “You’ve got this. Chill the hell out.”

Minkowski shook her head, grasping the pillow to her chest. “But—”

Lovelace held up her hand. “No buts. Here, come on, neither of us are gonna get any work done tonight.” She stood up, leaving her laptop on the couch next to her. “Let’s go to bed.” When she walked past Minkowski in the hallway, she grabbed Minkowski’s wrist without even stopping to look back.

“Lovelace, I…” Minkowski said, hesitant. “Is this what you want?”

_What do you want, Renée? Forget everything. Fuck anyone telling you what you should want, fuck the consequences tomorrow. Just tell me, what do you want, right now?_

Lovelace looked at her. She didn’t do anything else, didn’t squeeze Minkowski’s hand or pull her in for a kiss or sweep her off her feet. But she smiled, just a little, and if there was wetness welling up in her eyes Minkowski was not going to be the one to mention it. “I miss you,” Lovelace murmured. “Can we just—just have this night? Before it all goes to shit tomorrow?”

“Nothing is going to go to shit,” Minkowski responded automatically. And, well. Moments were made for seizing. She was the one to step forward into Lovelace’s arms, hug her close. “I miss you too.”

Lovelace clutched her even closer, almost tight enough to hurt.

The two women stood in the hallway like that for a long time. When they finally separated, Minkowski leaned up on her toes to kiss Lovelace on the cheek. “Remind me to tell you something when this is all over,” she whispered, and continued before Lovelace could object. “Come on, let’s get some sleep.”

With Lovelace’s hand in hers and the sound of her breathing, soft and steady, Minkowski fell asleep faster than she had in weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost at the end, folks! final chapter going up this Friday, which i am committing to so i don't forget about it and post it two weeks late (again)!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last one! Are you ready, folks?

On top of their stand, the Goddard officials all seemed so small. So human.

Pryce. Cutter. Kepler. Young. They looked just how they did in Minkowski’s nightmares, as if nothing about them had changed since the last time she saw them.

Cutter tapped his fingers on the wood in front of him, fucking _beaming_ as usual. Pryce was fiddling with something Minkowski couldn’t quite make out, the light reflecting off along the sides. Kepler looked far too smug for someone who’d been through what he had up on that space station, for all the times he’d been proved wrong and the single time he’d been called upon to _permanently_ lend a hand. (You couldn’t even tell the difference between his two hands from this distance, each seeming so human. More human than Kepler himself ever could be, the bastard.) Rachel Young just looked bored. She looked as though she already knew how this was going to play out; she thought that there wasn’t even a point to her being here.

Minkowski just hoped that she herself didn’t look afraid. She hoped that she looked exactly how she felt, even if she couldn’t quite describe her emotions in finer terms than ‘I would like to set bear traps by the bedside of all four of the people up there, and then light them on fire while they’re trapped.’

Angry was probably close enough. Determined.

Maybe even confident.

Lovelace was holding her hand as they filed through the courtroom and up to their own seats. It was ostensibly for the cameras but Minkowski knew better. Lovelace had grabbed her hand while they had been getting ready that morning and hadn’t let go. No matter who could see them, this was for them and them alone.

When Eiffel wandered in at the back of the room a few minutes later, his hair was sticking up seemingly completely unaffected by gravity and the dark circles under his eyes were deep crescent moons. He made his way up to the front and sank into the chair next to Lovelace, rubbing his face with one hand. “Hera’s gonna be late,” he mumbled through his hand. “There was complications with her body.” “Is she okay?” Minkowski and Lovelace asked in unison.

Eiffel nodded. “Mhhm, I wouldn’t have left her if she hadn’t been.”

Minkowski sighed. “I should have visited the lab more.”

“Boss, no, don’t beat yourself up about this,” Eiffel insisted. “Just a little thing, not anybody’s fault and definitely not yours. You’re good, I promise.”

She shook her head, smiling despite herself. “You’re too nice.”

“Nah, I think I’m just nice enough.” All three of them were smiling now, a moment of peace before the storm of the trial to come.

All of the main players involved were sworn in one at a time, from the jury hearing their case to Goddard to Hephaestus, one by one taking their turn in front of the judge that presided over the court.

“I solemnly swear and affirm that I will truthfully answer the questions that will be asked of me by the court or the attorneys concerning this case, so help me God.”

Hera still wasn’t here.

She spoke last, though, so that would be fine. Everything was going to be fine.

Minkowski barely heard Lovelace or Eiffel’s testimonies; both of them had practiced enough in front of her that _she_ could probably give their testimonies. Quinn was perfect in her role as their lawyer, eyeliner sleek and clothes perfectly pressed for what was probably the first time Minkowski had ever seen, the picture of power and control.

She stood when it was her turn. The witnesses she barely remembered had told their stories as the vent behind Minkowski wheezed loud enough to drown out any other sound, or maybe that was her own breathing coming fast and shallow? She had to go up to the stand. There was white creeping in at the edges of her vision, shifting like static on a TV screen.

She had to take a step forward, she had to.

She had to.

Lovelace was standing in front of her. “Renée, Renée,” she was murmuring. “It’s okay. You’ve got this.” Minkowski’s gaze focused in, Lovelace’s face clear before her eyes. She was still talking, still reassuring, still everything Minkowski wanted now and forever.

“I’ve got this,” she repeated.

Lovelace smiled at her and pulled her into a hug. “You’ve got this.”

And then it was her turn to speak.

Her testimony went off without a hitch. The words were practiced but real. The emotion of her experiences rang true in the way she spoke about them.

She finished as planned, but did not move from the stand.

There were a hundred better times to do this. But she was sworn to tell the truth right now, the truth and nothing but, so maybe there was really no better time.

This was idiotic and impulsive and probably the most Eiffel-like action she would ever take.

Minkowski cleared her throat. “Ask me about Isabel.”

“Excuse me?” the judge said.

She looked off to the side, at Lovelace and no one else. “Captain Isabel Lovelace. My fiancée. Ask me why I proposed to her, ask me why I hold her hand, ask me why I wear this ring instead of the one I wore before I stepped onto the Hephaestus.”

Lovelace just met her gaze, eyes steady and expression unchanged.

There was a murmur of surprise through the gathered audience and jury. Out of the corner of her eyes, Minkowski could just make out Garner making panicky _shut up!_ gestures at her. She kept her focus on Lovelace, who didn’t say a word and didn’t move a muscle.

“Go on,” the judge said after a moment of indecision.

And Minkowski went on. “Isabel is the strongest person I know. She’s… She’s smart and resilient and I trust her so much more than I thought I’d ever trust anyone. The four of us went through hell on the Hephaestus, but Isabel understood, more than anyone else. I will always remember the first time I heard her voice, long before I saw her, how happy she was. And then when we did see her…” Minkowski trailed off for a moment and shook her head. “She was so different. It took a long time for either of us to trust each other. And,” she hesitated. _Deep breaths. Keep going. You can do this._ “An even longer time for me to love her.”

Maybe she was tearing up a little but that was fine, she could keep talking through tears, she had started this and she was going to finish it. “Isabel has the most ridiculous bedhead I’ve ever seen and she’s infuriating and stubborn and I never thought I could love someone so much. I know that I’m frustrating and not always great at communication, but…” Her breath hitched. Now or never. “I love you. Isabel, I love you so much. I love the way you snort when you laugh too hard and the way you smile in the mornings, the way you smile when you’re drunk, the way you fake-grimace to cover up a smile when we’re watching cartoons and you’re pretending you’re too cool to enjoy it.”

Lovelace was crying, silent tears rolling down her face and a smile on her lips and Minkowski loved that smile as much as she loved any of the others she’d mentioned.

“That’s—that’s all I wanted to say,” Minkowski finished, tripping over her words and the ramp down from the witness stand as she almost ran back to their seats. Lovelace was standing, waiting for her, picking her up and spinning her around like they were in every romantic musical Minkowski’d dreamed of starring in as a little girl.

Lovelace set her down, tears gleaming in her eyes and tracking down her cheeks. “Renée,” she just said, and then again. _“Renée.”_ And then they were kissing, and Lovelace tasted like the salt in her tears and Minkowski never wanted to leave her arms.

The judge cleared his throat. “That was very touching, but I’m afraid we must get back to the trial now. Do you have any more witnesses to testify on the stand?”

And Hera still wasn’t there. There was a brief moment of confusion, of muttered grievances and hushed compromises. Somehow Quinn was able to convince Goddard’s lawyers to allow Hera to speak after Goddard gave their own testimonies, to give her more time to come.

She would get there on time.

She would.

Kepler was the first Goddard witness to get up on the stand, but he was certainly not the last. They had more people than the Hephaestus crew did, low level employees and other civilians who were all ready to swear that no one who worked at Goddard had _any_ idea of what was going on. It was all a terrible, terrible accident, they said, one after the other.

Minkowski knew that there was too much incriminating evidence that Goddard knew exactly what had been happening—the least of which being the fact that they had come up there themselves—but. Their witnesses sounded very, very convincing.

She squeezed Lovelace’s hand. This had to work out. They needed to win.

Even if Goddard had money and time and the best legal team money could buy on their side, even if Goddard had covered up a million deaths before, the four of them would take this company down.

If the fourth showed up.

Goddard’s lawyer crafted a narrative as much with her own voice as anyone else’s, everyone involved more than willing to testify to mistakes and forgotten messages and tech malfunctions. “I don’t think anyone I knew at Goddard had _any_ idea how terrible things really were, and surely if they had something would have been done!” one man insisted, hitting the stand with the flat of his hand in emphasis.

“Something _was_ done,” Minkowski muttered to Lovelace. “They tried to kill us.”

Lovelace just nodded, not taking her eyes off the stand.

People stood up to talk again and again, with words Minkowski didn’t hear and faces she’d already forgotten. The main witnesses were scattered throughout the other speakers, Young and Cutter taking their respective turns with an eerie confidence.

“I would like to call my final witness to the stand,” Goddard’s lawyer declared, and Pryce stood up.

And Pryce…

Pryce talked about Hera. She pointed out the flaws in ‘Unit 214’s’ design and the rebelliousness in her programming, the risk inherent in programming anything like her. Eiffel and Lovelace and Minkowski were all standing at once, only remaining by their seats because the judge glared at them and Quinn and Garner jogged over to tug them back to sit down.

By the time the doors at the end of the accessible entrance in the corner of the courtroom opened, Pryce was wrapping up her speech. To hear her tell it, Hera had been a malfunctioning tool and was entirely the reason for the lack of communication and danger onboard the Hephaestus. Unit 214 wasn’t to blame, it was not its fault—because after all, it’s difficult to assign fault to things that aren’t human.

Eiffel was grabbing at Minkowski’s sleeve, pulling her to look over at the room’s corner. There was a woman in a white coat with a familiar puff of hair. It was the scientist from Hera’s labs, was it Rose? Daisy? It had been a flower name.

The woman was holding open the door, and all three members of the Hephaestus crew had abandoned the last few seconds of Pryce’s testimony to hang over the back of their seats and watch.

They watched as slowly, carefully, Hera walked into the room. She wore a heavy canvas backpack, a few visible wires snaking into it. But she walked on her own, disconnected from the cradle her body had been in for so long. There was life in her eyes and Minkowski didn’t care if Hera didn’t technically have a mouth, she _knew_ Hera was beaming at them.

Pryce withdrew from the stand and Hera walked up on her own. She leaned heavily on the podium, shaking her head. “I don’t know where to begin.” She paused and tilted her head one to one side, quick and bird-like. “No, actually, I think I do. Let’s start from the beginning, when Doctor Pry-y-yce created a woman and then told her she was too emotional to be anything but a test subject. Or maybe a little later on, when Pryce used her own voice—I do sound familiar-iar, don’t I—to input a malfunctioning code in my head to, how did she put it? _Clip my wings?_ ” Hera sighed, the static-wheeze sound the same as ever. “What a shame for her that I remembered that. She did her best to ensure I never would.”

Hera pulled no punches. She took apart the arguments that Goddard ever had, pointed out the impossible situations (at least, the ones unrelated to aliens), the double-crossing, the way they _had_ to have known something. It was better than they’d ever practiced.

She was real, she was here and alive and sure the three of them had known the truth of her life the whole time, but other people had not. There was no way anyone could deny the reality of her being, not with her standing before them and talking about what Goddard had put her through.

By the time she finished and sat down next to Eiffel, no one on Goddard’s side of the room looked smug or bored in any capacity. Cutter was frowning ever so slightly, a wrinkle marring his forehead.

The jury deliberated.

While they waited for the decision, the four of them took a walk outside. There was a park nearby, filled with pigeons and scrubby grass and metal benches that burned in the sunlight.

A vendor offered them over-priced hot dogs, and between the three of them that had pockets they managed to come up with enough money to buy three of them.

Eiffel and Hera sat in the grass, feeding Eiffel’s hotdog to the pigeons. Hera kept brushing her hand over the grass, tugging at stalks of it like she wasn’t quite sure it was real. Eiffel couldn’t stop looking at her and smiling.

Lovelace dropped onto a bench in partial shade, closing her eyes and leaning back.

“I never thought I’d hear birdsong again,” she said, eyes still closed.

There were curls of hair blowing into her face, and Minkowski risked reaching forward to brush them back behind her ears. Lovelace cracked an eye open and smiled at her.

She smiled back.

They ended up barely finishing Lovelace’s hotdog and giving the pigeons around them even more of a feast by tossing pieces of Minkowski’s onto the ground.

“I don’t know if I thought about birdsong, but… I missed dogs,” Minkowski volunteered. “Even the things like picking up their poop or listening to them whine at your door at two am.”

Lovelace considered this for a moment, watching a pigeon try to swallow a chunk of sausage the size of its head. “We should get a dog,” she said after a moment.

Minkowski swallowed past the lump in her throat and leaned over to kiss Lovelace on the lips, gentle, soft. “That sounds amazing,” she whispered.

They were called back into the courtroom by Quinn, who had brightly colored band-aids on the tips of her fingers and wrapped around her knuckles. “Abi,” she said, flushing a little. “I bite them in big cases, and even flower band-aids look better than bloody knuckles. So she helped me with them.”

“That was very nice of her,” Minkowski said, and Quinn flushed darker.

“You had better go inside now, they’re going to announce the verdict!” she sputtered before anyone could say anything else about Garner. She pushed the four of them inside, following close behind.

The courtroom didn’t feel real. Not after the tawny grass and pigeons splotched with gray and black and gold, not after the blue blue sky and Lovelace’s lips on hers. It felt like a movie set— completely temporary.

There was an eternity in the steps between the door and their seats. Minkowski would have sworn she could feel the earth shifting under her feet, rotating at 1042 miles per hour, spinning into space.

The speaker for the jury stepped forward. The judge may have been overseeing, but in the end it all came down to the people sitting in those pews.

The speaker was a young man, short and chubby with a shock of blond hair. He cleared his throat before speaking. “We find the defendants, one Warren Kepler, Marcus Cutter, Rachel Young, and Miranda Pryce, and by extension the company Goddard Futuristics, guilty on all charges.”

Silence.

And then sound, and then shouting and whooping and apparently most of the audience was on their side, when had that happened?

Lovelace was tugging Minkowski up out of her seat and lifting her up, spinning her around again. Next to them, Hera and Eiffel were beaming at each other. Hera was already pulling Eiffel up into a hug that lifted him off his feet, jumping up and down until she stiffened for a second and he winced.

“Did you just shock me?”

“Sorry, sorry,” she gasped, “a little excited!”

Eiffel shook his head. “Baby, you can shock me a thousand times. You don’t ever have to apologize.” He grinned, wide and ridiculous and flushed with happiness. “We did it!” He leaned over to hug her again, but she carefully stopped him with one hand and leaned in to press her forehead to his.

“We did it,” she agreed, and there was so much joy in her voice that Minkowski wanted to cry again.

Lovelace pulled her into a hug, hooking her chin over Minkowski’s shoulders. “Do you want to go home?” she asked, voice low enough that even Minkowski could barely hear her.

Minkowski nodded, trusting Lovelace to feel the motion.

They left through the back entrance. The two of them walked out into the sunlight together, holding hands. The sun was brighter now, almost a little too bright.

Minkowski loved it anyway.

Lovelace lead Minkowski back to the apartment—to _their_ apartment—but they didn’t go inside immediately. Minkowski stopped on the sidewalk in front of the building and sat down on the grassy patch just to the side of the door.

“I love you,” she said, squinting up at Lovelace’s silhouette, stark against the sun.

“Kinda got that impression,” Lovelace teased, and when she sat down next to Minkowski there was a smirk on her lips and love in her eyes, the feelings all mixed up and running into each other. “I love you too, Renée.”

This time, when Minkowski leaned in to kiss Lovelace, she knew it was true. This was theirs, this moment and this feeling and this love they shared. It was real. It was here.

Lovelace’s lips were chapped, rough from where she’d bitten them during the trial. Minkowski didn’t care, she didn’t care about anything except the fact that they were _Lovelace’s_ and therefore perfect in every way possible. Lovelace brought one hand up to Minkowski’s cheek, cupping it gently. Her hand wasn’t as callused as it used to be, time on Earth slowly softening the rough places on all of them.

They drew apart and Minkowski could barely stand it. Lovelace’s eyes were dark as an eclipse, dark as the spaces between the stars, so deep Minkowski thought she might drown. “I think I’ve loved you for a long time,” she whispered.

Lovelace leaned forward, pressed her forehead against Minkowski’s collarbone. “You have no idea,” she murmured. She tipped her head up the slightest amount, just enough to kiss Minkowski again.

She was still so gentle.

Minkowski closed her eyes.

There was dirt and grass under her fingertips, cool even in the heat of the day. Lovelace was so close that Minkowski could feel the weight of her body in the air, even though their only points of contact were their lips and Lovelace’s hand now on her shoulder.

Lovelace ran so hot, it almost burned.

Minkowski wouldn’t change it for the world.

She pulled back and kissed Lovelace on the cheek. The two women just looked at each other for a moment longer, soaking in the feeling.

Minkowski took Lovelace’s hand without saying anything. They lay back next to each other in the grass, watching clouds scud across the blue sky and for once not thinking about what had happened to them way up there.

Whatever the future held for them, it was here on Earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!! it's done!! the longest thing I've ever finished and it's DONE and POSTED for all to see!! please leave a comment if you enjoyed it. :D or message me on tumblr at wendy-comet currently! i love talking about my fics and love talking about minlace or eiffera. hit me up!! thanks so much for reading, i had a great time writing this and i hope you enjoyed the story!

**Author's Note:**

> Updates prooobably every weekend or so? Depends on my schedule. It's all finished, so there shouldn't be any long hiatuses. HMU at wendy-comet on tumblr to scream about minlace or the finale, or if you want to beta future chapters of this fic. Also, check out [itsthisorcluedojohn's great artwork for this fic!!! ](https://itsthisorcluedojohn.tumblr.com/post/168976021526/minkovski-and-lovelace-safe-on-earth-and-together)


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